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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

The Sixty-fourth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery of Art

2,542nd Concert

National Gallery Orchestra

Christopher Kendall, guest conductor

Nicolas Kendall, violinist

October 2, 2005 

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Giovanni Battista Pergolesi (1710-1736)

(attributed to Domenico Gallo, c. 1730-C.1770)

Selections from Twelve Sonatasfor Two Violins and Basso or Orchestra

Moderato from Sonata no. 1 in G Major

Presto 1 and Presto 2 from Sonata no. 2 in B-flat Major

Andante from Sonata no. 8 in E-fat Major

Presto from Sonata no. 12 in E Major

Paul Schoenfield (b. 1947)

Vaudeville

Arranged for violin and orchestra by Nicolas Kendall

INTERMISSION

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

Adagietto from Symphony no. 5 (1901-1902)

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Pulcinella Suite (1949)

Sinfonia

Serenata

Scherzino; allegro; andantino

Tarantella

Gavotta con due variazioni

Vivo

Minuetto

The Musicians

NATIONAL GALLERY ORCHESTRA

The National Gallery Orchestra was founded in 1943 and initially consisted

of approximately twenty-five players who were also members ofthe National 

Symphony. Gradually growing in numbers, it eventually reached the size 

and status of a symphony orchestra. The ensemble undertakes the full range

of chamber and symphonic repertoire and has frequently presented first

performances ofworks by American composers, most notably the 1953

premiere of Charles Ives’s First Symphony, under the direction of Richard

Bales, and the 1991 premiere of Daniel Pinkham’s Symphony no. 4, under

the direction of George Manos.

CHRISTOPHER KENDALL

The National Gallery Orchestra welcomes as guest conductor Christopher

Kendall, newly appointed dean ofthe School of Music at the University

of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Previously the director ofthe University of Maryland School of Music, Kendall was also associate conductor ofthe Seattle 

Symphony from 1987 to 1992 and director ofthe music division and

Tanglewood Institute ofthe Boston University College of Fine Arts from

1993 t0 1996. He is the conductor and artistic director ofthe 21st-Century

Consort (known until 2002 as the 20th-Century Consort), and founder and

lutenist ofthe Folger Consort, the early music ensemble-in-residence at

the Folger Shakespeare Library. Kendall has been guest conductor with

numerous American orchestras, among them the Seattle Symphony, the

San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, the New York Chamber Symphony, the

Annapolis Symphony, and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.

Widely recognized by his peers for leadership in several areas of classical

music, Kendall and the 20th-Century Consort received Emmy and Wammie

Awards in 1984, 1987, and 1989, and the Woolson Award in 1989. He 

and the Folger Consort received the 1992 Smithson Award. Kendall’s performances can be heard in recordings on the asv, Centaur, Bard, Delos,

cri, Nonesuch, and Smithsonian Collection labels.

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NICOLAS KENDALL

Praised by the Washington Post for his “warmth, energy, and exuberance,”

violinist Nicolas Kendall’s 2005-2006 concert schedule includes performances ofthe Sibelius Violin Concerto at the Breckenridge Festival and the

Jewish Community Center of Greater Washington, Massenet’s Meditation

from Thais and Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen with the Asheville Symphony

Orchestra (North Carolina), and the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto with the

Vallejo Symphony Orchestra (California). He will also appear at the Moab

Music Festival in Utah and give recitals and educational residencies at

Western Michigan University and the University of Wisconsin. At age fifteen, Kendall made his debut with the National Symphony Orchestra as a

winner ofits Young Artists Competition. The following year he won the

Young Artists Competition ofthe Saint Louis Symphony and performed

with that orchestra. As first prize winner ofthe 2002 Young Concert Artists

International Auditions, Kendall was also awarded the Fergus Orchestra

Soloist Prize, the Pennsylvania Concerts Prize with the Janet Weis Award, 

the Rhoda Walker Teagle Prize, and the Barenreiter Prize for Violin. He

made his New York concert debut at Alice Tully Hall with the Westchester

Philharmonic in May 2004, and has appeared as soloist with the symphony

orchestras of San Diego, Anchorage, Flagstaff, and Wichita as well as the

Maryland Symphony Orchestra and the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra.

An active chamber musician, Nicolas Kendall is a member ofthe

Dryden String Quartet. He participated in the Isaac Stern Chamber Music

Seminar at Carnegie Hall, the Marlboro Music Festival, and the Los Angeles

Chamber Music Festival, and he performed with the late Ruth Laredo in her

concert series in Naples, Florida. Kendall studied with Victor Danchenko

at the Curtis Institute of Music. Following a long tradition set by his grandfather, John Kendall, the first string teacher to pioneer the Suzuki method

in America, and his uncle, conductor and educator Christopher Kendall,

Nicolas Kendall is an enthusiastic teacher who often performs in schools,

incorporating his love of various musical genres in his workshops.

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Program Notes

As is often the case with early music, the precise origin ofthe baroque

sonatas on this program is subject to question. The first person to publish

them, Robert Bremner (1713-1789), attributed them to Giovanni Battista

Pergolesi. But manuscripts ofthe same sonatas, also dating from the eighteenth century, credit an obscure composer, a younger Italian contemporary

of Pergolesi by the name of Domenico Gallo. The title ofthe collection, Twelve

Sonatasfor Two Violins and Basso or Orchestra, reflects the flexibility of performance practice ofthe time and the intent ofthe publisher to sell the music

to amateur practitioners of chamber music as well as professional musicians

in larger ensembles. For this presentation, Christopher Kendall has selected

only movements from the sonatas that were chosen by Igor Stravinsky

for transformation in his Pulcinella Suite, performed later in the program.

About Vaudeville, composer Paul Schoenfield writes:

Vaudeville, a concerto for piccolo trumpet, written for Wolfgang

Basch, represents a desire I had for several years to compose 

a work patterned after Robert Schumann’s piano masterpiece,

Camaval. [As Schumann did] 150 years ago, I have employed

simple formal schemes throughout, preferring unaffected 

thematic transformation to lengthy and ornate development 

as a unifying procedure.

Stylistically and in matters ofscoring, this concerto attempts to

capture the effervescent sounds and moods of vaudeville theater, while simultaneously providing a rarely heard solo instrument (the piccolo trumpet) an opportunity to demonstrate its

prowess.... A typical [vaudeville] show opened with an orchestra 

overture, which might be followed by an animal act and then

a dance troupe from abroad. In between the eight or nine acts,

there was usually a master of ceremonies (represented here

by the piano), who would introduce the various performers and 

perhaps tell a few jokes about oysters or mothers-in-law.

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In this work I adhered quite closely to the vaudeville format.

For example, after an overture, the second section, Bear Dance,

depicts a barnyard ballet, while the third section, Klezmers, portrays a party of vulpine village minstrels from Eastern Europe.

The fourth section, Sketches, consists of a clown routine, a song

and dance, and a masque, which leads directly to the finale,

Carmen Rivera, a set of variations loosely based on the Brazilian

folk song Tico-Tico.

Paul Schoenfield’s works combine exuberance and seriousness, familiarity and originality, lightness and depth. He takes inspiration from the 

full range of musical experience: popular styles, both American and foreign;

vernacular and folk traditions; and the “normal” historical traditions of

cultivated music making, often treated with sly twists. He looks for his 

inspiration in the national spirit, which in his case he describes specifically

as that of the Jewish American. Like Charles Ives, however, Schoenfield

enjoys mixing ideas that developed in entirely different worlds, creating 

a conversation among them and delighting in the surprises that their interaction engenders.

Born in Detroit in 1947, Schoenfield began musical training at age six

and culminated his piano studies under Rudolf Serkin. He holds degrees 

from Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Arizona, where he 

earned a doctorate in musical arts. An avid student of mathematics and the 

Talmud, Schoenfield has lived on a kibbutz in Israel as well as in Cleveland

and the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area. He and his family currently have

homes in both Israel and the United States. His compositions can be

heard on the Angel, Decca, Innova, Vanguard, EMI, Koch, BMG, and New

World labels.

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The Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony is one of a number of

movements from the symphonic repertoire that have taken their place in 

concert programs as works to be performed on their own. The sublime

orchestration that characterizes the Adagietto is the result of painstaking

work on the part ofthe composer, who reorchestrated the work for almost 

every performance ofit that he conducted. It was not until the year of his

death that he was able to confide in a friend, Georg Gohler, that the Fifth

was finished.

By his own admission, Igor Stravinsky became thoroughly acquainted 

with the works of Italian baroque composer Giovanni Battista Pergolesi

only after being urged to do so by his compatriot, the celebrated Russian

impresario Sergey Diaghilev (1872-1929). After reading through several

Pergolesi scores, both instrumental and vocal, Stravinsky became enamored

with the quality ofthe music and agreed to Diaghilev’s request that he 

write the musical score for a ballet, Pulcinella. Selecting some twenty of

Pergolesi’s works for his inspiration, Stravinsky included excerpts from the 

former composer’s sonatas for two violins and continuo as well as arias

from his serious and comic operas. The original ballet score contains eighteen scenes, from which Stravinsky arranged eleven for a suite for chamber

orchestra. In the suite format, Pulcinella was first performed on December 

22, 1922, by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, conducted on that occasion

by the French-American conductor Pierre Monteux (1875-1964).