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.

Please note that late entry or reentry ofthe 

East Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

Mailing address

2000b South Club Drive

Landover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

Jan Lievens, Lute Player, c. 1627, revised c. 1628, The Walters Art Museum,

Baltimore, Maryland, Gift ofthe Dr. Francis D. Mumaghan Fund, 1973

The Sixty-seventh Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,691st Concert

National Gallery Vocal Arts Ensemble

and

National Gallery Chamber Players

Presented in honor ofthe exhibition

Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master Rediscovered

November 2, 2008

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621)

Psalm 150

Clemens non Papa (1500-1556)

Ave Maria

Giaches de Wert (1535-1596)

Peccavi super numerum

John Bull (1567-1628)

Fantasia ex g

Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687)

From Pathodia Sacra (1647)

Psalm 3: Multi dicunt animae meae

Psalm 129: Deprofundis

Psalm 143: Memorfui

Johann Jacob Froberger (1616-1667)

Alleluia! Absorta est mors

Peter Philips (1561-1628)

O nomen Jesu

Andrej Hackenberger (1574-1627)

Exultatejusti

INTERMISSION

Orlando di Lasso (1532-1594)

Bonjour, mon coeur

Quand mon mari vient de dehors

Matona mia cara

Andries Pevernage (1543-1591)

Clio, chantons disertement

From Praise ofAntwerp

Sweelinck

Fascia, Filli, mia cara

Pevernage

Bonjour, mon coeur

Carolus Hacquart (c. 1640-1701)

Sonata quinta a tre

From Harmonia Pamassia sonatarum, op. 2 (1686)

Six Popular Dutch Songs from the Sixteenth Century

Hubert Waelrant (1517-1595)

Als ick u vinde

Anonymous (Late sixteenth century)

Ic truere

Jacques Vredeman de Vries (1558-1621)

Pae om Pae

Servaes van der Muelen (1525-1592)

Altijt so moet ic trueren

Joannes de Latre (c. 1505-1569)

Al hadden wij vijfenveertich bedden
The Musicians

NATIONAL GALLERY VOCAL ARTS ENSEMBLE

The National Gallery Vocal Arts Ensemble is now in its fourth season as a

chamber choir under the leadership ofits artistic director, Rosa Lamoreaux.

The choir has presented special programs in honor of Gallery exhibitions, 

including a concert of plainchant and Renaissance choral music in honor

of Masterpieces in Miniature: Italian Manuscript Illuminationfrom the J. Paul

Getty Museum (2005) and part-songs and anthems by nineteenth-century

English composers in honor of The Artist’s Vision: Romantic Traditions in

Britain (2006). The singers look forward to a guest appearance at the Sonora,

Mexico, Music Festival in January 2009, where they will sing a program of

Spanish and Hispanic choral music.

Members ofthe National Gallery Vocal Arts Ensemble participating in 

this concert are:

Rosa Lamoreaux, artistic director and soprano

Gisele Becker, soprano

Barbara Hollinshead, mezzo-soprano

Roger Isaacs, countertenor

Stephen White, tenor

Ole Hass, tenor

Steven Combs, baritone

Peter Becker, bass-baritone

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NATIONAL GALLERY CHAMBER PLAYERS

The newest ofthe resident ensembles at the Gallery, the National Gallery

Chamber Players take on assignments that require expertise in the interpretation ofinstrumental music written before 1750. They first appeared in

concert at the end ofthe 2006-2007 season, performing “A Musician’s

Travels in Sound, 1430-1700” in honor ofthe exhibition Fabulous Journeys

and Faraway Places: Travels on Paper, 1450-1700. In June 2008 they were 

invited to perform music ofJohann Sebastian Bach at the Washington Early

Music Festival. They will be heard again in May 2009, when the Gallery will

present concerts in honor of Luis Melendez: Master ofthe Spanish Still Life.

National Gallery Chamber Players participating in this concert are:

Risa Browder and Leslie Nero, baroque violin

John Moran, viola da gamba

Grant Herreid, lute, theorbo, recorder

Donsok Shin, organ

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Program Notes

The Franco-Flemish composers ofthe sixteenth and seventeenth centuries

were internationally admired and respected. In the course ofthe Renaissance and early baroque periods they created a cornucopia ofmusical gems 

in two traditions—the refined sacred and chamber music ofthe region that

eventually became known as The Netherlands during the period when it

was ruled by the Spanish Hapsburgs (1518-1581) and the household music

that expressed the independence and folk traditions ofthe Dutch nation

that emerged as the period of Spanish domination ended. A great many of

the songs ofthe period deal with the same themes—love, deceit, vanity,

and aberrations ofhuman behavior—that Jan Lievens (1607-1674) depicts 

in paintings that are included in the exhibition Jan Lievens: A Dutch Master

Rediscovered, currently on view at the National Gallery. Like the paintings, the 

songs and the instrumental pieces they inspired are intimate in scale. They

were commonly played by the Dutch middle class, frequently as background

music for banquets or as entertainment in taverns, but also in the context of

house concerts. The popularity ofthis music lasted for well over one hundred years, through the lifetime ofJan Lievens and beyond.

The southern part ofThe Netherlands, which eventually became known

as Belgium, was admired as a cosmopolitan center already in the mid-sixteenth century. Francesco Giucciardini, a nobleman from the ducal court in 

Florence, wrote while visiting the region in 1567: “In Antwerp one can see at

almost every hour ofthe day weddings, dancing, and musical groups... .There

is hardly a corner ofthe streets not filled with the joyous sounds ofinstrumental music and singing. The majority ofthe people understand grammar

and nearly all, even the peasants, can read and write.... An infinite number,

even those that never were out ofthe country, besides their native language, 

are able to speak several foreign languages, especially French, with which 

they are most familiar; many speak German, English, Italian, Spanish, and

others speak languages even more remote.”

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As the United Provinces in the northern part ofThe Netherlands gained 

independence, they became known among continental Protestants, English

Puritans, and Jews for their relative tolerance and became a refuge and 

temporary home for victims ofreligious persecution. Indeed, the population

ofAmsterdam in the early seventeenth century was evenly divided between 

Dutch-born and foreign-born persons. This program reflects the broad variety

ofmusical styles and languages that would have been heard in the churches,

homes, and streets of both the northern and southern parts ofThe Netherlands in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck is believed to have spent his entire life in

Amsterdam, playing from his teen years until his death at the Oude Kerk,

(the Old Church), where his father had been organist before him. Sweelinck

was born Catholic, but his family converted to Calvinism in the late sixteenth century, along with the congregation ofthe Oude Kerk and much of

the population ofAmsterdam. As a Protestant composer, Sweelinck attracted attention in England, and some English composers came to Amsterdam

to study with him, among them Peter Philips, who probably met Sweelinck

in 1593, and John Bull, who wrote a set ofvariations on a theme by his friend

Sweelinck when the latter died in 1621.

Clemens non Papa (Jacques Clement) was one ofthe few Flemish composers ofthe early sixteenth century to remain in the Low Countries throughout his career. Most ofthe other famous composers ofthe region emigrated

to France, Italy, or Spain, where the court life was more lavish and the possibilities for a court musician more varied. He was the first composer to write

polyphonic Psalm settings in Dutch.

Giaches de Wert was one of many Flemish choir boys who were lured

(or kidnapped) to Italy by agents ofItalian princes with promises of adventure and better employment in the sunny south. In de Wert’s case, he was

taken to Naples, where he sang briefly in the choir ofthe Chapel of Maria

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de Cordona before being drafted to serve the d’Este family in the court in

Ferrara. There he had the good fortune to study with and eventually succeed

the famous madrigalist Cypriano de Rore. Late in his career de Wert in turn

mentored another great composer, Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643).

A major figure in the seventeenth century in The Netherlands was 

Constantijn Huygens (1596-1687), whose portrait by Lievens is included

in the exhibition. Huygens was a statesman, scholar, and art patron of note

as well as a composer. His collection Pathodia sacra et profana (Sacred and

Profane Songs of Pathos) was published in 1647 and dedicated to Utricia Ogle,

the niece of an English diplomat who was a gifted amateur musician and with

whom Huygens was rumored to have a clandestine relationship. His Psalm

settings are for solo voice, with organ and basso continuo accompaniment.

One ofthe German composers whose music became popular in The

Netherlands through the efforts ofConstantijn Huygens was Johann Jacob

Froberger. He was among the most famous musicians ofthe era, and his

elaborate keyboard suites were studied and admired by every major composer

in Europe in the second halfofthe seventeenth century.

Carolus Hacquart, a Dutch organist who also played the lute and the

viol, was another protege of Huygens. Hacquart’s collection Harmonia

Pamassia is an important counterpart to the compositions of Henry Purcell

(1659-1695) and Archangelo Corelli (1653-1713).

Andrzej Hakenberger was a Polish composer whose career reflected

emerging tolerance in the early seventeenth century in another part of Europe. 

He was the first Catholic to be employed as music director at Saint Mary’s

Church in Gdansk, which was at the time the largest Lutheran congregation

in Europe.

Orlando di Lasso spent his early years in Antwerp, where he was known

as Roland de Lassus. Like Giaches de Wert, he was kidnapped for service in

Italy while still a boy soprano. He distinguished himself quickly as both a

singer and a composer, and by age twenty-three he had attained he post of

maestro di capella (master ofthe chapel music) at the Church of Saint John

Lateran in Rome.

Andreas Pevernage served from 1585 to 1591 in the equivalent position

at the Antwerp Cathedral, where the post was called Kappellmeister. Many 

ofhis works are represented in a collection of Dutch liedekens (short songs)

from Tylman Susato’s Musyck boexen (Music Boxes) (1551). This multi-volume

compendium is the source for some ofthe songs in the last set on this program. Its preface includes a passage that is very appropriate for the occasion: “A few years ago I began publishing various types ofmusic, such as

masses, motets, and certainly many French chansons.. .yet I have always

had the intention ofbringing to light the noble, heavenly art ofmusic in

our Netherlandish mother tongue, as is the case with music in the Latin,

French, and Italian languages, which is well known and has been disseminated in all countries.”

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Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

The Coast Orchestra

Music for chamber orchestra by

Native American composers and a screening ofthe film

In the Land ofthe Head Hunters (Edward S. Curtis, 1914)

with live musical accompaniment

Presented in honor of

George de Forest Brush: The Indian Paintings

November 9, 2008

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

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