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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

3,025th Concert

Carolyn Enger, pianist

Presented in honor of

Modem American Prints and Drawings

from the Kainen Collection

November 30, 2014

Sunday, 3:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

Down a Country Lane (1962)

Midsummer Nocturne (1947)

The Young Pioneers (1935)

Midday Thoughts (1944)

In Evening Air (1966)

Sunday Afternoon Music (1935)

Ned Rorem (b. 1923)

Piano Album 1

Song without Words (1978)

(For Jim, to help him on his birthday. With all my faith

and most ofmy love.)

Carol-Pastiche (1984)

(To the only Jim in the world, this Carol-Pastiche to thank

him for giving a point to the past seventeen years.)

Serenadefor Two Paws (1985)

(On Christmas with love from Ned. For Jim to teach to

Sonny on rainy afternoons.)

Nineteen Measuresfor Jim (1986)

(Nineteen years already... These nineteen measures, with

their two lean voices, must symbolize the richness

ofthose years. With love forever.)

Golden Notes on Nearing Fifty (1986)

(For Jim at forty-nine, this mirror-image ofChristmas 1986 

because any mirror into which he gazes turns to gold.

Another Little Song without Words (1987)

(For jh on another birthday. Since no words could even

describe the depth ofmy feeling for you.)

This Serpentine Etude (1990)

(Forever dear Jim. This Serpentine Etude is unrevised. But

then, so is my feeling for you, which has merely

augmented since first we met, 23 year ago this month.)

For a Perfect Friend (1991)

(For Jim on Christmas Eve 1991)

Marriage Measures (1992)

(To John Simon and Pat Hoag)

Snapshot ofJack (1992)

(For Jack Mitchell)

For Jim (1993)

(On Christmas Eve 1993. With love for longer than forever...)

A Little Waltzfor Jim at Fifty-Five (1994)

(For the only Jim in the world without whom I could not write

this or any music.)

A Melodyfor Shirley (1994)

(For Shirley with love from Ned today and forever. A note for

every year.)

A TalismanforJim on Christmas Eve (1994)

(Who am I, presuming to embellish the mighty Tallis? Yet who is

Tallis in the shadow ofJim, who lights my whole world?) 

On His Birthday (1995)

(O Jim, I will love you forever...)

Ah Jim... (1995)

(The mere words that traditionally adorn these offerings can no

longer explain my crucial feeling for you. So now, the two

sonic parallel lines that become three, then four, modestly

symbolize eternal hope within.)

A BerceuseforJim at Christmas (1997)

(And for the most crucial three decades ofmy life. I love you.)

A Christmas Cardfor Mary and Rosemary (1997)

(With love forever.)

For a Perfect Sister (1997)

(For Rosemary on Christmas Eve 1997)
A Sarabandefor the Only Jim in the World (1998)

(For Jim on his birthday with love forever.)

Sixty NotesforJudy (1999)

Seventy-Seventy Notesfor Rosemary (1999)

Ninety-Nine Notes to the Millennium (1999)

(For Ben Yarmolinsky and the Friends and Enemies of

Modern Music)

For Ben (1999)

Waiting to Get Well (2000)

(To Eugene Istomin with love)

1+1=3 (2,000)

(Two people can make a third. This little meditation consists

of a two-voice invention often measures; a nine-measure

chorale interlude; then the invention again, now in three

voices. With love for Jenny and Joel.)

Forty Chordsfor Mark on April First (2001)

Leonard Bernstein (1918-1990)

Selections from Anniversaries (1943-1948)

For Aaron Copland

For Shirley Gabis Rhoads Perle

For Stephen Sondheim

For Craig Urquhart

In Memoriam: Helen Coates

In Memoriam: Goddard Lieberson

For Susanna Kyle

The Musician

Lauded for her sensitive, nuanced playing, American pianist and Steinway

artist Carolyn Enger earned praise from MusicWeb International, which 

described her playing as “thoughtful and sensitive... expressive.... She

plays with fine nuance and tone shading.” Fanfare wrote, “Enger’s dynamic 

control and emotional sensitivity complement her keen sense oftiming and

proportion.” With performances at the Caramoor Center for Music and the 

Arts, the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, the Donnell Library Center,

Lincoln Center’s Bruno Walter Auditorium, Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church, 

the Tenri Cultural Center, Spectrum, and Weill Recital Flail at Carnegie Flail,

Enger dedicates her career to bringing music to new audiences. Outside 

New York City, she has played at Israel’s Bet Yad Lebanim in Nahariya and

Felicja Blumenthal Music Center in Tel Aviv. Fler debut album, In Evening

Air, includes music of Beethoven, Copland, Hanson, Liebermann, Rorem,

and Scriabin.

Since recording In Evening Air, Enger has delved deeper into Rorem’s

music for piano. On the occasion ofthe composer’s ninetieth birthday 

(October 23, 2013), Naxos released her recording of his collections, Piano

Album 1 and Six Friends, on its American Classics series. Earlier this month,

Enger performed six works by Ned Rorem on the occasion ofhis ninety-first 

birthday as celebrated by the Kosciuszko Foundation.

In addition to works by Rorem, Enger’s recital programs often feature 

music by Lowell Liebermann, Betty Olivero, Avner Dorman, and Lior Navok.

Her interest in distinctive concert experiences has led her to explore a multimedia concert program about World War 11 that combines music, literature, 

and images that focus on the lives of Mischlinge—half-Jews—in Germany 

before, during, and after the Holocaust.

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Program Notes

Chosen by Carolyn Enger to honor the exhibition Modem American Prints

and Drawingsfrom the Kainen Collection, the piano music in tonight’s concert

comes from three ofthe most prominent American composers ofthe

mid-twentieth century. Written between 1943 and 2001, these pieces, most

ofthem miniatures, are from the same period during which Ruth and Jacob

Kainen built their remarkable collection of prints and drawings. Ruth Cole

Kainen (1922-2009) studied English at the University of Oregon and music

at Yale University before working for various cultural organizations. In 1958

she settled in Washington, DC, and soon after began to acquire art. Her

marriage to Jacob Kainen (1909-2001) a decade later marked the union of

two formidable collecting talents. As an artist in New York City during the

1930s, Jacob knew such key figures as Stuart Davis, Arshile Gorky, and

Willem de Kooning. As curator of graphic arts at the Smithsonian from 1942

to 1970, he made important acquisitions and wrote scholarly texts on the

prints of eighteenth-century artists and other subjects. Together, Ruth and

Jacob Kainen built a collection ofimpressive variety and quality, from which

they donated more than 2,000 works, primarily prints, drawings, and rare

illustrated books, to the National Gallery ofArt. The current exhibition presents a selection ofmodern American holdings from that collection and pays

tribute to the collectors’ connoisseurship and generosity.

By the late 1940s Aaron Copland was widely regarded as the foremost

American composer ofhis time. Earlier in his career, however, he had been

an outsider, due in part to his socialist sympathies. In 1932, at Cesar Chavez’s

urging, he visited Mexico for the first time. He found the country’s people

and its revolutionary government an inspiration, and he returned to Mexico

for extended working vacations. In 1934 he gave speeches on behalf offarmers

in rural Minnesota and composed the workers’ chorus Into the Streets May

First, and in 1935 he wrote a tribute to the Soviet Young Pioneers, heard in the

first part oftonight’s program. Even as he rose to prominence in the 1950s,

Copland became the target ofanti-communist smear campaigns. These attacks

culminated in the cancellation ofhis Lincoln Portrait from a 1953 presidential

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inaugural concert, and a subpoena to appear before a closed hearing of a

congressional subcommittee. Throughout these trials, he denied being a

communist and successfully avoided implicating any friends or associates.

Ned Rorem spent the summers of 1946 and 1947 as a fellowship student

at Tanglewood, where he was part ofCopland’s composition class. Copland,

he later wrote, “was less a pedagogue than an adviser—a sort ofmusical

protocol expert.” Rorem completed his formal training at the Juilliard

School, and while he was still a student there his The Lordly Hudson (1948),

on a text by Paul Goodman, was deemed the “best published song ofthe

year” by the Music Library Association. He went on to earn a reputation as

the prime American composer ofsongs.

Outside musical circles, Rorem became known for his writing, particularly his diaries. The Paris Diary ofNed Rorem (1966) includes sharp, elegantly 

written observations on culture, people, and music. Three additional autobiographical volumes followed: The New York Diary (1967), The Final Diary

(1974), and The Nantucket Diary (1987). The poignant vignettes that make up

his Piano Album 1 are reminiscent of diary entries, with their touching

subtitles that are tributes to some ofthe friends and loved ones with whom

he interacted between 1978 and 2001.

Although Leonard Bernstein is best remembered for dramatic works for 

the musical theater and his controversial Mass, written for the dedication of

the Kennedy Center in 1971, his oeuvre also includes a number ofsmaller

works in various genres, some ofwhich have become well known. Among

them are the Anniversaries, character pieces written throughout his career

from 1943 to 1988. By way oflinking the first and last segments ofthe

program, Carolyn Enger includes Bernstein’s anniversary tribute to Aaron

Copland among the seven selected Anniversaries with which she concludes

her recital.

Program Notes by Stephen Ackert, Senior Music Program Advisor,

National Gallery ofArt.

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