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the performance is not allowed. Please be sure

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Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

www.nga.gov

Concerts are made possible in part through the generosity of donors

to the National Gallery ofArt through The Circle. Reserved seating is

available in recognition oftheir support. Please contact the development

office at (202) 842-6450 or circle@nga.gov for more information.

The Seventy-Third Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

3,052nd Concert

Ana Vidovic, guitarist

National Gallery ofArt Chamber Players

Presented in connection with the

European Month of Culture

May 17, 2015

Sunday, 3:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court
Program

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741)

Concertofor Two Violins and Cello in D Minor, op. 3, no. 11, rv 565 (1711)

Allegro

Allegro

Largo e spiccato

Allegro

Bruno Nasta and Simon Rundlett, soloists

Vivaldi, rev. Alfredo Casella (1883-1947)

Concerto alia rusticafor Strings in G Major, rv 151 (1730)

Presto

Adagio

Allegro

Vivaldi

Chamber Concerto in D Major, RV 93 (1731)

[Allegro giusto]

Largo

Allegro

Fernando Sor (1778-1839)

Introduction and Variations on a Theme by Mozart, op. 9 (1821)

Agustin Barrios Mangore (1885-1944)

Una Limosna por el Amor de Dios (Alms for the Love of God) (1944)

The Musicians

Croatian guitarist Ana Vidovic is known for her beautiful tone, precise 

technique, well-defined phrasing, and extremely thoughtful artistry and

musicianship. Since first taking the stage in 1988, her performance career 

includes recitals, concerto engagements, and festival appearances in many

of Europe’s cultural destinations such as Budapest, Copenhagen, London,

Oslo, Paris, Rome, Salzburg, Vienna, Warsaw, and Zagreb. Her tours have

also taken her to Australia, Brazil, Israel, Japan, Korea, and Mexico. In

North America, audiences have seen her on the stages ofAustin, Baltimore,

Boston, Dallas, Houston, Las Vegas, New York City, Portland (Oregon), San

Francisco, St. Louis, Toronto, and Washington, DC. She also has recorded six

CDs. Mel Bay Publications has released Ana Vidovic’s dvd entitled Guitar

Artistry in Concert, a journey through the music ofTorroba, Piazzolla, Pierre

Bensusan, Sergio Assad, Stanley Myers, Villa-Lobos, and Agustin Barrios

Mangore, as well as Guitar Virtuoso, a performance ofworks by Bach,

Torroba, Paganini, and Walton.

Vidovic’s 2014-2015 season is filled with international engagements,

including concerto performances with Maine’s Bangor Symphony, and

the Zagreb Philharmonic conducted by David Danzmyer. Recitals are

scheduled throughout the United States, in Canada, and also in Aachen 

and Ettlingen, Germany.

Vidovic has won first prizes in the Albert Augustine International

Competition in Bath, England, the Fernando Sor competition in Rome, Italy,

and the Francisco Tarrega competition in Benicassim, Spain. Her other top

prizes include the Eurovision Young Musicians competition, the Mauro

Giuliani competition in Italy, Printemps de la Guitare in Belgium, and the 

Young Concert Artists International Auditions in New York. In Croatia, the 

guitarist has performed with the Croatian Radio and Television Symphony

Orchestra, and appeared in three television documentaries by the eminent

Croatian film director Petar Krelja. Ana Vidovic comes from the small town 

of Karlovac near Zagreb. She started playing guitar at the age offive and

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gave her first public performance by age seven. At the age of eleven, she was

performing internationally, and at thirteen became the youngest student to

attend the prestigious National Musical Academy in Zagreb, where she 

studied with Istvan Romer. Vidovic’s reputation in Europe led to an invitation to study with Manuel Barrueco at the Peabody Conservatory.

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART CHAMBER PLAYERS

Consisting primarily ofsmall ensembles from within the National Gallery

ofArt Orchestra, members ofthe National Gallery ofArt Chamber Players

have provided appropriate chamber music in conjunction with a number

ofrecent Gallery exhibitions, including music by nineteenth-century French 

and Belgian composers in honor of The Darker Side ofLight: Arts ofPrivacy,

i8jO-igoo (2009); Renaissance Spanish music in honor of The Art ofPower:

Royal Armor and Portraitsfrom Imperial Spain (2009); Music by Gershwin, 

Joplin, and Milhaud in honor of From Impressionism to Modernism: The

Chester Dale Collection (2011); and music for silent films from Catalonia in

honor ofJoan Miro: The Ladder ofEscape (2012). Chamber players participating in this afternoon’s concert are:

Violin 1

Bruno Nasta

Simon Rundlett 

Henry Tyszler

Luke Wedge

Cello

Lori Barnet 

David Cho

Robert Battey

Violin 2

Lisa Cridge

Leslie Silverfine

Connie Milner

Viola

Matthew Maffett

George Ohlson 

Jim Kelly

Bass

Robert Kurz

Harpsichord

Steven Silverman

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Program Notes

Venetian composer, Antonio Vivaldi, served in many roles throughout his

lifetime, including as a teacher, cleric, and virtuoso violinist. He spent the 

bulk of his career, about thirty years, working at the Devout Hospital of

Mercy in Venice, where he composed prolifically and taught music to the 

hospital’s orphans. Vivaldi wrote over five hundred concertos and forty

operas, earning widespread fame across Europe during his lifetime.

While opera proved more lucrative, he also wrote concertos for soloists

and varied configurations ofinstruments. Vivaldi often followed the influence ofArcangelo Corelli (1653-1713), a pioneer in the concerto grosso

style. The concerto grosso differed from the solo concerto by passing

musical material between a small group ofsoloists, or concertino, and 

the full orchestra, also known as the ripieno or concerto grosso.

Vivaldi’s audiences often lauded his astounding facility on the violin.

One contemporary, German architect Johann Friedrich Armand von Uffenbach, commented, “It is hardly possible that anyone has ever played, or ever

will play, in such a fashion.” Vivaldi’s performance acumen gave him the 

ability to write quite idiomatically for string instruments. Given the customs

ofthe baroque era, it was no surprise that idiomatic string writing superseded formal innovation. One such example, the Concertofor Two Violins

and Cello in D Minor, presents a wide scope ofrhythmic and motivic variety

while remaining primarily in the home key of D minor for the entire work.

Concerto alia rustica, composed for orchestra only, is one ofVivaldi’s

best-known concertos. It is a briefwork, opening in the active and unrelenting moto perpetuo style. The second movement is a slow, contrasting adagio

characterized by long chords, and the finale is a lively, dancelike movement

in Lydian mode. Vivaldi’s Chamber Concerto in D Major features one soloist,

incorporating two violins as a ripieno section in the livelier movements

and as chordal accompaniment in the interior largo. Originally written for

lute and eventually transcribed for guitar, the concerto remains one ofthe 

hallmarks ofthe repertoire for guitar and orchestra.

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Introduction and Variations on a Theme by Mozart is one of Fernando 

Sor’s most famous works for guitar. Dedicated to his brother, Carlos, the

work was first performed at a private party among London nobility. The 

piece requires superb technique and embodies all of Sor’s best characteristics as a composer. His biographer, Brian Jeffrey, asserts that “the music

devotes itself not to ‘guitaristic’ effects but only to itself.” The theme used in

this set ofvariations comes from Mozart’s last opera, The Magic Flute. In the

finale ofAct 1, Papageno plays a tune on his glockenspiel that is so beautiful

it distracts the nefarious Monostatos from his evil doings. At the sound of

the tune, Papageno’s captors begin to dance away singing, “That sounds so

splendid, that sounds so beautiful! I’ve never heard or seen anything like it!”

Agustin Pio Barrios was born in Paraguay and raised with a deep

connection to both Spanish American and indigenous Guarani cultures.

He often used the pseudonym “Nitsuga Mangore” (Nitsuga is “Agustin”

spelled backwards, and Mangore is the name of a past leader ofthe indigenous Timbu people), and eventually Mangore became his surname. At

age fifteen, Mangore enrolled at the National University in Asuncion, where

he studied music and literature. He was especially adept as a guitarist and 

synthesized his musical talent with his love for poetry by composing more

than three hundred songs for voice and guitar. He was best known for his 

electrifying live performances and became one ofthe first classical guitarists

to make recordings in 1909. His music is stylistically late romantic, often 

virtuosic, and falls into folkloric, imitative, or religious categories. His best 

known work, La Catedral (1921), certainly drew inspiration from religious 

themes, as did Una Limosna por el Amor de Dios, which the composer

completed just months before his death in 1944.

Program Notes by Michael Jacko, Music Program Assistant,

National Gallery ofArt

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Upcoming Concerts at the National Gallery ofArt

Washington Performing Arts

Feder and Misbin Competition Winners

June 7, 2015

Sunday, 3:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court