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

West Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

For the convenience of concertgoers, 

the Garden Cafe remains open for light refreshments

until 6:00 pm on Sundays.

Music Department

National Gallery of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

unvw.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-first Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,902nd Concert

National Gallery ofArt Chamber Players

Teri Lazar, violinist

Osman Kivrak, violist

Stephen Ackert, pianist

with Paul Kosower, cellist

September 23, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

(Performed without intermission)

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Sonata in D Major, BWV1028 (c. 1720)

Adagio

Allegro

Andante

Allegro

Osman Kivrak (b. 1954)

Uzun Ham, for violin and viola (1997)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Duo in G Majorfor Violin and Viola, I<. 423 (1783)

Allegro

Adagio

Rondeau: Allegro

Bach

Sonata in G Minor, BWV 1029 (c. 1720)

Vivace

Adagio

Allegro

Carl Reineclce (1824-1910)

Quartetfor Pianoforte, Violin, Viola, and Violoncello, op. 272 (1904)

Adagio

Scherzo: Moderato

The Musicians

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART CHAMBER PLAYERS

Formed from members ofthe National Gallery ofArt’s resident orchestra, 

the National Gallery ofArt Chamber Players have collaborated with guest

artists to perform music by Renaissance Italian, nineteenth-century British,

and contemporary Catalonian composers, as well as standard repertoire by

Bach and Mozart. In recent seasons, these resident ensemble concerts have

enhanced such varied exhibitions as Arcimholdo, 1326-1593: Nature and

Fantasy; The Darker Side ofLight: Arts ofPrivacy, 1850-1900; and joan Miro:

The Ladder ofEscape.

TERILAZAR

Praised by the Washington Post for her “unusually warm tone and a splendid

legato,” violinist Teri Lazar has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East. A winner ofthe

Alexandria Symphony Soloists, Brevard Concerto, Montpelier Arts Center,

and National Association of Music Clubs competitions, she is a member of

the National Gallery ofArt String Quartet and the Sunrise Quartet and the

concertmaster ofthe Virginia Chamber Orchestra. She earned bachelor,

master, and doctor ofmusic degrees from the Catholic University ofAmerica

and teaches violin at American University, where she is a musician in

residence. Lazar has recorded chamber music for the Albany, Arizona 

University, Centaur, Klavier, North/South Recordings, and Plucked String 

labels and has been heard on National Public Radio’s Performance Today.

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OSMAN KIVRAK

With numerous concert tours to his credit, including performances at the 

Spoleto Festivals in the United States and Italy, violist Osman Kivrak brings

a wealth of experience and expertise to the National Gallery ofArt Chamber

Players as well as to its resident string quartet. With the Sunrise Quartet, 

he has performed on National Public Radio and Virginia Public Television

broadcasts and recorded for the Amcam, AmeriMusic, Arizona University

Recordings, and Living Music labels. A viola instructor in the applied music

program at American University, Kivrak received master ofmusic and doctor

ofmusic degrees from the Catholic University ofAmerica. His compositions have been performed at the Corcoran Gallery ofArt, the Kennedy

Center, and the Library ofCongress. He has received awards from the Culver,

California, Chamber Music Competition; the Maryland National Parks and

Planning Commission; and the Maryland State Arts Council. Before coming

to the United States, Kivrak studied at Gazi University in Turkey and the 

Guildhall School of Music in London and taught at Turkey’s Izmir University.

PAUL KOSOWER

Appearing as the guest musician on tonight’s program, cellist Paul Kosower

is professor emeritus at the University ofWisconsin, Eau Claire, where he

was coordinator ofthe string division and conductor ofthe uw-ec Chamber

Orchestra as well as a teacher of applied cello and organ. For ten years he 

toured with the Dolce Cello Trio, performing with his son Mark, a professional cellist who has also performed at the National Gallery, and his daughter Paula, a professional cellist who performs and teaches in the Chicago

area. As an orchestral soloist, Paul Kosower has played concertos with the 

Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Mississippi Valley Orchestra of Saint

Paul, and the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and has played in recital

in the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series at the Art Institute of

Chicago as well as in Austria, Hungary, and Romania.

A scholarship student at the Cleveland Institute of Music, where his 

teacher was Cleveland Orchestra principal cellist Ernst Silberstein, Kosower

made his New York debut in Town Hall. He plays a Giovanni Battista

Gabrielli cello, made in Florence in 1751.

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STEPHEN ACKERT

Now in his ninth year as head ofthe music department at the National Gallery

ofArt, Stephen Aclcert studied the organ at Oberlin College; Northwestern

University; the Hochschule fur Musik in Frankfurt am Main, Germany; and

the University ofWisconsin in Madison, where he completed his doctoral

studies in 1974. A resident ofthe Washington area since 1979, he has performed at the Kennedy Center, the National Cathedral, and the National

Shrine ofthe Immaculate Conception. In 2008 he undertook his ninth

recital tour of historic concert halls and churches in Germany, and in 2010

and 2012 he played for national conventions ofthe American Liszt Society.

Ackert has presented his lectures and preconcert talks on the interrelationships between music and art at the Amalfi Coast Music and Art Festival

in Italy; the Austrian, German, and Italian embassies in Washington; the

Kennedy Center; and the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore.

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Program Notes

Johann Sebastian Bach’s three surviving sonatas for viola da gamba and 

harpsichord, BWV 1027,1028, and 1029, are presumed to have been composed around 1720, when he was in the service of Prince Leopold ofAnhaltCothen (1694-1729). Himself a competent singer and instrumentalist,

during the first year of his reign (1715) the prince hired a viola da gambist

who was already famous throughout Europe, Christian Ferdinand Abel

(1683-1737), and two years later hired Bach—the best composer he could

find. It is likely that Bach wrote the sonatas with Abel’s proficiency in mind.

The works make technical demands that were unprecedented at the time,

including complicated bowing patterns, arpeggios, multiple stopping, 

chords, and a high degree ofleft-hand virtuosity. Although still the instrument of choice of a few specialists in baroque music, the viola da gamba has

in modern times been largely supplanted by the viola and the cello.

About Uzun Hava, for violin and viola, Osman Kivrak writes: “Bela

Bartok, who made extensive use offolk music elements when composing,

visited Turkey in 1936, recording and transcribing a number ofsongs and

dances. This collection was published subsequently as a book titled Turkish

Folk Musicfrom Asia Minor. In this book, Bartok describes an experience he 

encountered in his trip to a rural part ofTurkey:

... but what a dance it was! And the music was astounding. One

ofthe musicians was playing an instrument that looked like an

oboe and the other was playing a bass drum that was tied to his

belly. Four men were dancing and the two musicians, drummer 

and oboist, were from time to time taking part in the dance. After

a short while, the music and dance came to a sudden halt, and

one ofthe dancers started a song... at a very high tenor voice,

and gradually winding down, he came down to a normal register.

Bartok was listening to uzun hava, one ofthe two main categories of

Turkish folk music. (The other category, kirik hava, is dance music that is

fast, rhythmic, and lively.) Consisting of broad, descending melodic lines,

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uzun hava is improvisatory, unmeasured, and performed freely with no

particular rhythm. In this piece, I have tried to create the improvisational

effect of uzun hava.”

Mozart’s Duo in G Majorfor Violin and Viola, K. 423, is the first oftwo

that he wrote in 1783 to complete a set ofsix that Michael Haydn 

(1737-1806) had been commissioned to write for Prince-Archbishop Colloredo of Salzburg. Having completed four duos, Haydn was unable to

finish the commission on schedule, and asked Mozart, who was at the time

also working for the prelate, to compose the other two on short notice. The 

complete set ofsix was presented to Colloredo as a work of Haydn, since the 

patron was angry with Mozart at the time, and not inclined to offer him

any commissions. Colloredo, who prided himself on being musically knowledgeable, never noticed that two ofthe duos stood out from the others as

far superior compositions, and delivered the full commission fee to Haydn 

without question. Mozart left Salzburg permanently in 1784, and once he was

safely out oftown, he delighted in telling this story, revealing how he had

fooled his hated former employer.

There were so many high-profile composers of genius in Germany in

the mid- to late nineteenth century that it is little wonder that some fine

ones went virtually unnoticed. One ofthose was Carl Reinecke, who drew 

critical praise during a thirty-year long concert stage career that lasted 

approximately from 1830 to i860—concurrent with and completely overshadowed by the concert careers of Franz Liszt (1811-1886) and Sigismond 

Thalberg (1812-1871). Reinecke then went on to conduct the Leipzig

Gewandhaus orchestra and direct the Leipzig Conservatory of Music. A

prolific composer, with six operas and numerous works in other genres to

his credit, he continued to compose well into his eighties, and died in 1910

at age eighty-six. His Piano Quartet, op. 272, presents a wide range of moods 

and gives each instrument an important role to play. Tonight’s concert 

concludes with the two shorter movements ofthe four in the quartet, the 

Adagio and the Scherzo.

Program notes by Stephen Ackert, head, music department,

National Gallery ofArt

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