The use ofcameras or recording equipment during

the performance is not allowed.

For the convenience ofconcertgoers

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:30 p.m.

Selectionsfrom concerts at the Gallery

can he heard on the second Sunday ofeach month

at 9:00 p.m. on WGMS, 103.5 FM.

The final concert ofthe season takes place next Sunday, 24 June,

at 7:00 p.m. in the West Garden Court.

Pianist Paul Badura-Skoda plays works by Mozart,

Schubert, and Beethoven.

Concerts at the Gallery resume on 7 October 2001,

with a performance by the National Gallery Orchestra,

George Manos, conductor.

The Fifty-ninth Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2389th Concert

NATIONAL GALLERY CHAMBER PLAYERS

STRING QUARTET

GEORGE MANOS, artistic director

CLAUDIA CHUDACOFF, violin ERIC deWAARDT, viola

REGINO MADRID, violin, DIANA FISH, cello

Sunday Evening, 17 June 2001

Seven O'clock

West Building, West Garden Court 

Admission free
PROGRAM

Presented in honor of the exhibition Spirit ofan Age:

Nineteenth-Century Paintingsfrom the Nationalgalerie, Berlin

Felix Mendelssohn String Quartet No. 3 in E-flat Major

(1809-1847) Op. 44 (1838)

Allegro vivace 

Scherzo: Allegro di moto

Adagio non troppo 

Molto allegro con fuoco

INTERMISSION

Ludwig van Beethoven String Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp Minor

(1770-1827) Op. 131 (1826)

Adagio ma non troppo e molto espressivo

Allegro molto vivace

Allegro moderato e adagio

Andante ma non troppo e molto cantabile

Presto

Adagio quasi un poco andante 

Allegro

The National Gallery Chamber Players String Quartet is composed 

of members of the National Gallery Orchestra and appears as a regular 

feature of each concert season of the Gallery. Under the guidance of

Gallery music director George Manos, the quartet has acquired a

splendid ensemble reputation since its debut performance in 1995. In

addition to performing the standard quartet literature, the National 

Gallery Chamber Players String Quartet surveys and performs rarely 

heard masterpieces of chamber music.

A graduate of the Eastman School of Music, violinist Claudia

Chudacoff has among her credits several solo appearances with the

National Gallery Orchestra under George Manos, including a recent 

performance of Brahms’ Concerto for Violin, Cello, and Orchestra with

cellist Marcio Botelho. Other orchestral solo appearances have been with

the Toledo Symphony, the Louisville Ballet, and the Ann Arbor 

Symphony. She has been first violinist of the National Gallery Chamber 

Players String Quartet since its inception.

Regino Madrid, a native of Los Angeles, received the bachelor of

music degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1998. He is

currently a member of the "President's Own" United States Marine Band

and plays regularly at the White House. He has played with the

Cleveland Orchestra, the Erie Philharmonic, and the Canton Symphony

in Ohio. He has participated in numerous music festivals, including 

Holland Music Sessions, the Santa Barbara Music Academy of the West,

Musicorda, and the professional studies program at Soundfest with the

Colorado Quartet in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

Violist Eric deWaardt, a native of Delft, Holland, studied the viola

with Ramon Scavelli, William Lincer, and the Cleveland Quartet’s Atar 

Arad. He has performed as principal violist with the Spoleto Festival 

Orchestra, the Heidelberg Festival Orchestra, and the Columbus, Ohio,

Symphony Orchestra. An active recitalist and chamber musician, he has

presented recitals in Holland and in many Washington venues, including 

The Jewish Community Center of Rockville, Maryland, the United

States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and the Embassy of The

Netherlands.
Cellist Diana Fish came to Washington in 1994 as a member of the

Marine Band’s White House Chamber Orchestra. She graduated from the

Curtis Institute of Music as a student of Orlando Cole and later did

graduate work at Indiana University, where her teacher was Janos

Starker. A founding member of the Whitney Trio, she has performed 

throughout the United States, including chamber music performances at

the National Gallery and the Phillips Collection.

The city of Berlin was a capital of the musical world long before it

became the political capital of Germany and the site of important art

collections. Significant composers and schools of music were in

evidence from the fifteenth century onward in Berlin, but the nineteenth 

century saw an unprecedented surge of creative musical activity. The

Berliner Singakademie, a choir of well-trained amateur singers founded 

in 1791, was the vehicle with which composers of sacred music, from

Mendelssohn to Schumann to Brahms, introduced new works to the

public and revived forgotten masterpieces from the past. Numerous other 

choirs presented the works of Beethoven, Bach, and Liszt in

performances of exceptional quality. Benjamin Bilse founded an

orchestra in 1867 that was as famous in its time as the Montovani 

Orchestra was in the twentieth century. In the 1880s the Bilse Orchestra 

evolved into the Berlin Philharmonic, which was catapulted to

international fame by its first two permanent conductors, Josef Joachim 

and Hans von Biilow. It was the orchestra of choice for world premiere 

performances conducted by composers Richard Strauss, Tchaikovsky, 

Grieg, and Brahms. Two opera houses, the Royal Opera House and the

Schauspielhaus (designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel), flourished 

throughout the century and saw world premieres of important operas by

Mendelssohn, E. T. A. Hoffman, Jakob Meyerbeer, and Heinrich August 

Marschner.

Among the artists represented in the exhibition Spirit of an Age:

Nineteenth-Century Paintings from the Nationalgalerie, Berlin, the one

who experienced the most fruitful interaction between art and music was

Adolph Menzel (1815-1905). An avid amateur pianist, he enjoyed the

company of many of the outstanding musicians of his day, and many of

his works were the result of his interest in music. The Flute Concert of

Frederick the Great at Sanssouci (1852) emphasizes the importance of

music in the life of an enlightened monarch and recalls the golden age

when Carl Philip Emanuel Bach was the music master of Berlin’s royal

court. Menzel’s Theatre du Gymnase (1856) reproduces faithfully the

often overlooked details of the pit orchestra and invites comparison with

similar works of another lover of opera and theater, Edgar Degas.

A subtle reference to the importance of music in the life of nineteenthcentury Germans is the legible representation of sheet music for 

Schubert’s song, Am Meer, in Anton von Werner’s painting A Billet

outside Paris (1894). In spite of muddy boots, the lancers are quite

capable of singing and playing an art song, evidence that they bring

education and an appreciation of high art with them to the battlefield, 

aside from disseminating German culture in “unenlightened” France.

Concertgoers who have not already viewed the exhibition are warmly

encouraged to do so. It remains at the Gallery until 3 September.

Felix Mendelssohn’s family moved to Berlin in 1811, when he was

two years old, and he remained there until 1829. His parents exposed 

him to every educational opportunity that the metropolis had to offer. In

addition to studies with prominent musicians, poets, and philosophers, he

received instruction in art from the Berlin landscape painter, Johann 

Gottlob Samuel Rosel.

All three quartets that comprise Mendelssohn’s Opus 44 are considered 

masterpieces in this genre. They appear to be the result of the happiness 

he experienced during the year 1838, the first year of his marriage to

Cecile Jeanrenaud (1817-1853). In writing his quartets, Mendelssohn 

followed the classical format set down by Beethoven and Haydn. Under

their influence, he was able to perfect the technique and textural balance 

of quartet writing and to establish himself as a composer of substance, 

compassion, and discernment. The first movement (.Allegro vivace) of

the Quartet, Op. 44, No. 3, has a robust and spirited opening theme.

During an extensive development, that same emotional drive spills over 

into the secondary themes. The second movement (Scherzo: Assai

leggiero vivace) is as delightful and irresistible as only a Mendelssohn
scherzo can be. The third movement (Adagio non troppo) is a paragon of

profound, heartrending emotional expression. The finale (Molto allegro

con fuoco), with its coruscating scales passages and impulsive drive,

brings the quartet to a brilliant conclusion.

With no further commissions for works forthcoming after his Quartet

in B-flat Major, Op. 130, Beethoven turned to his next quartet, according 

to biographer Alexander W. Thayer (1817-1897), “solely as the result of

inner compulsion, the unconquerable need to create.” As such, his

Quartet No. 14 in C-sharp Minor, Op. 131, is considered among the

most dauntless and innovative string quartets ever written. It is set in

seven movements, with only one slight pause between the fourth and

fifth movements. The first movement {Adagio ma non troppo e molto

espressivo) is a slow fugue, unique in Beethoven’s works, with a theme

that separates into two parts. The first part sets a lugubrious mood. It is

followed, however, by a second part that is filled with the radiance of a

philosophical or metaphysical transformation. The fugue appears to end

on a C-sharp chord. This is a deception, for it is actually leading to the

key of D major, the key of the second movement {Allegro molto vivace).

With a meter of 6/8 time, this movement brings a steady light of hope

and encouragement with its dancelike melody. On the other hand,

ambiguity is introduced by the frequent appearance of the term poco

ritardando (holding back modestly), implying a lack of confidence. 

“One thinks of the new-made man and woman in Beethoven's ballet, The

Creatures ofPrometheus, not quite human as yet, but striving to become 

so” (David Johnson). The third movement {Allegro moderato) interrupts 

the previous movement’s prosaic mood with an austere recitative that is

only eleven measures long. A series of cadenzas passes as if by magic

from the bow of the first violin to the viola, the cello, and the second

violin, and finally returns again to the first violin.

The fourth movement {Andante ma non troppo e molto cantabile) is

the epicenter of the sonata. In the key of A major, this extended slow

movement is cast in the form of a theme with seven variations. Wagner,

who was enamored with this quartet, called the theme “the blessed 

incarnation of innocence.” Cloaked in a binary form, it offers a

conversation between the first and second violins that “at once [suggests]

a certain warmth in contrast with the pale, tenuous beauty of the second

movement” (Desmond Shawe-Taylor). The seven variations that follow

are the personification of happiness without evidence of a smidgen of

gloom. The fifth movement {Presto), consisting of almost five hundred 

measures, begins with the cello on a whirlwind spin that evokes the spirit

of a scherzo. It is energetic and vivacious, with a repetitive drive that is

derived from some unknown source of potential animation. Beethoven’s

instruction to the musicians to play on the bridge of their instruments 

{sul ponticello) at the end of the movement was an innovation and

created a new instrumental sound for his time. The sixth movement 

{Adagio quasi un poco andante), though only twenty-eight measures 

long, is an aria in song form. Again quoting David Johnson: “Beethoven

could not resist briefly writing not so much an adagio as the ghost of an

adagio.” Although short, the Adagio provides a respite between the

breathless fifth movement and the cyclonic and exhilarating passion of

the seventh and final movement {Allegro). It is worked out in sonataallegro form, with a simple yet powerful first theme, announced by the

four instruments in unison. Through a form of modification known as

free inversion, this theme is related to the fugal theme of the opening

movement, giving unity and coherence to a work of heroic proportion. 

Laurel-crowned C-sharp minor chords announce the end of a work that

honors the struggle of life and concludes with redemption.

Program notes on the music by Elmer Booze