75TH SEASON 

OF CONCERTS

APRIL 23, 2017 • NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
Tadashi Nakayama, Crane in Flight, 1957, National Gallery of Art,

Washington, Rosenwald Collection

2 • National Gallery of Art

PROGRAM

3:30 • West Building, East Garden Court

East Coast Chamber Orchestra

Christopher Theofanidis (b. 1967)

A Thousand Cranes

Stars and Sonnets

Wind Spirit

Sadako

Andre Caplet (1878-1925)

Conte Fantastique

Intermission

Witold Lutosiawski (1913-1994)

Five Folk Melodies

Josef Suk (1874-1935)

Serenade for Strings in E-flat Major, op. 6

75th Season • 3
The Musicians

In 2001, a group of musicians —colleagues and friends from leading conservatories and music

festivals across the country —collectively envisioned the creation of a democratically run,

self-conducted chamber orchestra that would thrive on the pure joy and camaraderie of

classical music making. This organic approach and high level of passion and commitment

resulted in the East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO), a dynamic collective that combines

the strength and power of a great orchestral ensemble with the personal involvement and

sensitivity of superb chamber music.

ECCO is comprised of some of today's most vibrant and gifted, young string players —

soloists, chamber musicians, principals of major American orchestras, and Grammy Award

winners. ECCO members play with the symphony orchestras of Philadelphia, Minnesota,

San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis, Seattle, and Boston, among others. Members also play

with the Enso, Jasper, Jupiter, and Parker Quartets, as well as the Horszowski Trio, Trio

Cavatina, Sejong Soloists, Time for Three, and Chamber Music Society II. For a few concentrated periods of time each year, the members of ECCO meet for rehearsal and musical 

exploration. Cooking, eating, enjoying close friendships and sharing tips for raising the next 

generation of ECCO are important aspects of their gatherings. Along with musical exploration, there is always an intense discussion to be had about the joys and challenges of 

maintaining a truly communal, creative organization.

In 2012, ECCO members celebrated their first decade of friendship and discovery with

the release of their first commercial recording. It includes Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings

in C Major, op. 48, Shostakovich's Chamber Symphony in C Minor, op. 110a, and the exuberant 

and surprising "La Follia" Variations for String Orchestra, arranged by ECCO's own Michi

Wiancko after Francesco Geminiani's Concerto Grosso no. 12 in D Minor.

ECCO's 2016 - 2017 season includes debuts at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, the

National Gallery of Art, and Ithaca College Concerts, and return visits to Naumburg Orchestral 

Concerts, the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, and Peoples' Symphony Concerts.

Violin

Anna Elashvili

Ken Hamao 

Nicolas Kendall

Alexi Kenney

Jessie Montgomery

Miho Saegusa

Michi Wiancko

Ying Xue

Sandy Yamamoto

Cello

Kee-Hyun Kim

Alberto Parrini

Raman Ramakrishnan

Bass

Nate Farrington 

Harp

Sivan Magen

Viola

Maurycy Banaszek

Dov Scheindlin 

Jonathan Vinocour

Cong Wu

A Thousand Cranes

A Thousand Cranes is a piece I long-wanted to write. Many years ago, on a visit to Japan, I

encountered the story of Sadako Sasaki, a young girl who suffered radiation poisoning from the atomic bomb in Hiroshima during World War II. There have been many 

artistic efforts written in response to that horrific event, most of which have had an understandably intense and dark impulse. The story of Sadako seemed to me to have a different

focus: her short life met the unspeakable with the only response that can reflect true good —

hope and faith in the future.

After Sadako became sick, she followed an old custom that said if she folded one thousand origami cranes, her deepest wish would come true. In an effort to heal herself, she folded

the one thousand cranes, and then, when she didn't get better, she started to fold another one

thousand. This hope and belief in a better future, even in response to such a tragedy, is what

attracted me to the subject, and it is what underpins the impulse of my piece.

A Thousand Cranes is also in some ways a fulfillment of a promise that I made to my 

friend, Masakazu Hoshima, who hosted me and many others in Hiroshima. He took us to

the memorial museum there, introduced us to a survivor who shared his story, and showed 

us many other facets of life in that remarkable city.

This work was originally written for the East Coast Chamber Orchestra with Sivan

Magen on harp, and it premiered in December 2015 in Dallas, Texas. Program notes by

Christopher Theofanidis

Conte Fantastique

Caplet's Conte Fantastique for harp and strings, inspired by Poe's tale "The Masque of the

Red Death," was published in 1924, but was based on an unpublished "symphonic study"

dating to 1909. It is impossible, therefore, without seeing this study, to be certain of what

material in the Conte is postwar and what is prewar. What is unmistakable, though, is Caplet's

determination to rethink instrumental capabilities. Just as he did with the solo instrument in

the Epiphanie for cello and orchestra of 1923, and before that with the voice in the Inscriptions

Champetres of 1914, so here he liberates the harp from its traditional role of being purely

pastoral, decorative, and decorous.

Poe's tale can be read as a development of his poem "The Haunted Palace.” Whereas

in the poem the evil force invades arbitrarily, in the tale it is present from the start, giving the 

"deep seclusion" of Prince Prospero's "castellated abbey” a provisional air. Caplet's choice of 

the harp may initially seem odd, but in fact, it works wonderfully well exactly because of the 

instrument's nineteenth-century connotations —and indeed, early twentieth-century ones,

as in the two Danses by Debussy and Ravel's Introduction and Allegro. Caplet employs traditional

language and textures in the central part of the piece in order to give it the feeling of a fairy

tale: the cut of the melodies here is modal or pentatonic — both traditionally signifying "far

away and long ago."

His depiction of the Red Death, by contrast, draws on the most recent melodic and

harmonic sources. The very first page of the score shows how far Caplet has moved in

twenty years from orthodox, Prix de Rome platitudes. The harp's first notes are marked 

"haletant"—"breathless." Since the harp cannot breathe, and not breathing will hardly help

Program

75th Season • 5
the harpist, this may seem a nonsensical instruction. But Caplet's idea is surely that the

phrase should give the impression of the harp as a wind instrument, whose breath is

abruptly cut off after just six notes, where the player is ordered to damp the strings

("etouffez"). Admittedly, the structure of this opening, of an idea gradually burgeoning

between silences, is borrowed from Debussy (see the opening bars of Pelleas et Melisande),

but Caplet's chromaticism comes nearer to Schoenberg; and it is perhaps relevant to note 

that Caplet conducted the first performance in France of Schoenberg's Five Orchestral Pieces

in 1922, before a scandalized audience. The harp's third phrase here uses ten of the twelve

chromatic notes to paint the picture of the Red Death stalking the countryside.

Any composer would have to incorporate somehow the chiming of the ebony clock

to mark the hours of the revels, at which "the dreams are still-frozen as they stand.” Caplet

chooses to give the harpist only the chimes of eleven o'clock and the more fateful ones

of midnight, upon which the masked figure of the Red Death appears, "tall and gaunt, and

shrouded from head to foot in the habiliments of the grave.” The "buzz, or murmur" of 

the assembled company at this apparition is expressed in string tremolos, glissandos, and

harmonics that truly look forward to the textures imagined by Boulez thirty years later.

Caplet's death was indeed a great tragedy.

Five Folk Melodies, composed in 1945, initiated Witold Lutostawski's interest in Polish

folk music. These twelve piano miniatures, full of peculiar charm, are based on simple folk

melodies from different regions of Poland and are taken from Jerzy Olszewski's collections

of folk melodies, which were perfectly set into a sophisticated harmonic substance and

pulled into interesting metro-rhythmic adventures. In principle, they were intended for

pedagogical purposes and aimed to bring young performers closer to contemporary music. 

Thanks to a unique perspective and sublime artistic values, the folk melodies are impressive

stage compositions. Five of the melodies from this cycle (numbers 1, 2, and 10-12) were 

arranged and adapted by Lutostawski for a string band.

When dismissing his Prague Conservatory composition class for the summer 1892,

Antonin Dvorak told eighteen-year-old Josef Suk, "It's summertime now, so go and make

something lively for a change, to compensate for all those pomposities in minor." Suk took

that advice and that summer created what is still his best-known work, a sunny and

uncomplicated serenade of substantial dimensions, lasting nearly a half hour. In mood and

mastery it is worthy of comparison with other great nineteenth-century string works, such

as the Serenade by Tchaikovsky, the Holberg Suite by Grieg, and the String Serenade by

Dvorak himself. The line of sunny string works would continue with compositions by the 

likes of Elgar, Holst, Britten, and Diamond.

Little in the way of analysis is required to absorb and appreciate this gentle and

beautiful piece, though it is worth noting that the main subject of the first movement is

practically identical with part of the main theme of Brahms's Violin Concerto. The most

substantial movement is the lyrical slow movement, at over ten minutes. One of the main 

pieces in the romantic string orchestra repertory, the Serenade for Strings was premiered as

a whole on February 25,1895, by the Prague Conservatory Orchestra, conducted by Antonin

Bennewitz, to great acclaim; two movements had been heard fourteen months earlier in

Tabor, conducted by Suk himself.

6 • National Gallery of Art

Upcoming Events of the SeventyFifth Season of The William

Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot

Belin Concerts

West Garden Trio 

'Washingtonians on Wednesdays"

Music by Kenji Bunch, Charles Ives,

and Paul Schoenfield 

April 26,12:10

West Building, East Garden Court

Matt Haimovitz and Christopher O'Riley 

All-Russian program

April 30, 3:30

West Building, East Garden Court

Tonality of Culture

Multidisciplinary Estonian concert

Presented as part of the

European Month of Culture

May 3,12:10

East Building Auditorium

Margaret Leng Tan

The Three Cs: Cage, Cowell, Crumb

Metamorphoses, world premiere

of a new work by George Crumb

May 7, 3:30

East Building Auditorium

Laura Falzon, flute, and Rupert Boyd, guitar

Presented as part of the

European Month of Culture

May 10,12:10

West Building, East Garden Court

General Information

Admission to the National Gallery of Art

and all of its programs is free of charge,

except as noted.

The use of cameras or recording equipment

during the performance is not allowed.

Please be sure that all portable electronic

devices are turned off.

Concerts are made possible in part

through the generosity of donors to the

National Gallery of Art through The Circle. 

Reserved seating is available in recognition

of their support. Please contact the

development office at (202) 842-6450 or

circle@nga.gov for more information.

www.nga.gov

www.instagram.com/ngadc

www.twitter.com/ngadc

www.facebook.com/nationalgalleryofart

The department of music produced these

program notes. Copyright © 2017 Board of

Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Back cover West Building, Constitution

Avenue entrance, viewed from Sixth Street NW,

1941, National Gallery of Art, Washington,

Gallery Archives