For the convenience of concertgoers 

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:oo pm.

The use of cameras or recording equipment during the 

performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell phones,

pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off.

Music Department

National Gallery of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

Mailing address

2000b South Club Drive

Landover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

Plato’s Academy, 1st century BC-ist century AD, mosaic,

Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei,

Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli

The Sixty-seventh Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery of Art

2,686th Concert

Michele Campanella, pianist

October 15, 2008

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

East Building Auditorium

Admissionfree
Presented in cooperation with the Center for

Musical Studies and the Giunta Regionale della Campania

in honor ofthe exhibition Pompeii and the Roman Villa:

Art and Culture around the Bay ofNaples

Program

Music of Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)

Sonata in C Major, Kirkpatrick 270

Sonata in D Major, K. 515

Sonatas in E Major, K. 380 and 381

(Played without pause)

Sonata in B Minor, K. 27

Sonata in D Major, K. 96

Sonatas in D Major, K. 490, 491, and 492

(Played without pause)

Sonata in G Minor, K. 426, and Sonata in G Major, K. 427
The Musician

An internationally recognized virtuoso and interpreter ofthe music of

Franz Liszt, Michele Campanella was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque

by the Franz Liszt Academy ofBudapest in 1976,1977, and 1998, and was

recently the recipient ofthe prestigious Fondazione Premio Napoli and 

Fondazione Guido e Roberto Cortese awards. Fie also received widespread 

critical acclaim for his recordings ofthe complete piano works of Beethoven,

Mozart piano concertos, and Brahms piano variations. As a result of his 

training with Vincenzo Vitale in Naples, Michele Campanella is fluent in the 

musical language of a wide range of composers, including Ferruccio Busoni,

Muzio Clementi, Gioacchino Rossini, Domenico Scarlatti, and Carl Maria

von Weber.

Campanella’s discography includes recordings for Cetra, emi, Fone,

Musikstrasse, Philips, and pye. He has played with leading orchestras in

Europe and the United States, under the baton ofClaudio Abbado, Gianluigi 

Gelmetti, Eliahu Inbal, Charles Mackerras, Zubin Mehta, Riccardo Muti,

Georges Pretre, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Thomas Schippers,

Hubert Soudant, and Christian Thielmann. Campanella is frequently invited

to perform at international music festivals in Berlin, Lucerne, Prague, 

Taormina, Turin, and Vienna. He collaborates regularly as a chamber musician with violinist Salvatore Accardo and flutist Rocco Filippini.

In recent years, Campanella has expanded his career to include conducting, and has appeared as conductor and soloist with the Accademia Nazionale

di Santa Cecilia Orchestra in Rome, the Haydn Orchestra of Bolzano and

Trent, I Filarmonici di Verona, the Orchestra da Camera of Padua and the

Veneto, and the ort Orchestra ofTuscany. Much in demand as a teacher,

he is a faculty member at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena and conducts 

popular master classes at the world-renowned Villa Rufolo in Ravello.

4

Program Notes

This concert is the culmination of a series of concerts offered in honor of

the exhibition Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay

ofNaples, which opens at the Gallery on October 19. Presented at the National

Gallery and in other venues in the United States and Italy under the title

“The Eighteenth Century Rediscovers the Ancient World,” the series represents a collaboration among the Gallery, the Center for Musical Studies, and 

the Giunta Regionale della Campania, which has sent a special delegation 

from Italy to this concert and to the other events celebrating the opening of

the exhibition. Noting that the rediscovery of ancient Roman artifacts and 

texts from Pompeii began in earnest in the eighteenth century, during the 

reign ofthe Bourbon kings of Naples, the concerts have featured the works

of eighteenth-century Neapolitan composers, many ofwhom were inspired

by the legends of ancient Greece and Rome.

In addition to this appearance by Neapolitan pianist Michele Campanella,

the series has included a lecture by Professor Anthony DelDonna of Georgetown University and performances by soprano Rosa Lamoreaux, pianist

Fabrizio Soprano, Chatham Baroque, and the National Gallery Chamber

players. Concerts were also held at the Strathmore Center for the Arts in 

Bethesda, Maryland, the Italian Embassy in Washington, and the Amalfi

Coast Music and Arts Festival in Italy. Now in its fourteenth year, the Amalfi

Coast Festival is produced by the Washington-based Center for Musical

Studies and takes place in Campania, the region in Italy ofwhich Naples

is the capital. The primary historical sites in Campania are the source for

many ofthe artifacts, books, and manuscripts on view in Pompeii and the

Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the Bay ofNaples.

The era known as “the golden age ofthe Kingdom of Naples” (1735-1800)

was a time of breathtaking archeological discoveries and important early

research into life in the ancient Roman Empire. Domenico Scarlatti was

born in Naples in 1685, when it was nearing the end ofits subservience to

Spain and Austria and was emerging as a power to be reckoned with, both

5
economically and culturally. The city’s musical culture was his first nurturing environment. He excelled at an early age as a performer on the harpsichord, so much so that his father, Alessandro Scarlatti, who was an important musical figure in his own right, came to see Domenico as an unwelcome

rival and used his influence to get appointments for him in other places. 

Alessandro’s problem was resolved when Domenico was hired as maestro di

cappella by the King of Portugal.

That appointment took Domenico to Lisbon, where his duties included

teaching Princess Maria Barbara to play the harpsichord. When she married

the crown prince of Spain, she could not bear to leave her beloved teacher

behind in Lisbon, so she brought him along with the rest ofher entourage to

Madrid. He remained in her service until the end ofhis life. Thanks to Maria

Barbara’s loyalty to her teacher, most of Scarlatti’s works were copied for her

use and preserved, whereas the original manuscripts have all disappeared.

An inventory ofher possessions, compiled at the time ofher death, includes

detailed descriptions ofthe keyboard instruments Scarlatti had at his disposal. 

From this one can be quite certain that he was acquainted with both the

double-manual harpsichord and the fortepiano, which were included in her

collection. However, a comparison ofthe highest and lowest notes on the

keyboards ofthose instruments with the range ofnotes in his late works 

suggests that Scarlatti preferred a single-manual harpsichord, the only one

in Maria Barbara’s collection to have a wider compass of notes.

Domenico Scarlatti introduced a hitherto unexplored freedom ofstyle to

keyboard music, much as his father opened the gates to stylistic innovations

in opera. He introduced many new technical devices, among them rapid

repetitions, crossed hands, and dissonant chord clusters. The 550 singlemovement sonatas he wrote are indebted to Neapolitan folk song for their

exuberance and their reliance on exact repetition as an emphatic device.

6

Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

Festival Strings Lucerne

Presented in connection with the Swiss culturalfestival

Music by Ammann, Brahms, and Mendelssohn

October 19, 2008

Sunday evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

eo

Brazilian Guitar Quartet

Music by Albeniz, Mignone, Miranda, and Villa-Lobos

October 22, 2008

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

East Building Auditorium