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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

cover: Autograph score of Mozart’s Concertofor Violin and Orchestra

in A Major; K. 219, in the Gertrude Clarke Whittall Collection, 

Music Division, Library of Congress. Used by permission.

The Sixty-fourth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery of Art

2,556th Concert

National Gallery Orchestra

Otto-Werner Mueller, guest conductor

}ung-min Amy Lee, violinist

Presented in connection with the festival “Mozart on the Mall”

January 22, 2006

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Overture to The Magic Flute

K. 620 (1787)

Concertofor Violin and Orchestra in A Major (“Turkish”)

K. 219 (1775)

Allegro aperto

Adagio

Rondo: Tempo di menuetto

INTERMISSION

Symphony No. 39 in E-flat Major

K. 543 (1786)

Adagio; allegro 

Andante con moto

Menuetto: Allegretto 

Finale: Allegro

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

ofCharles Ives’ First Symphony under the direction of Richard Bales and the 

1990 premiere of Daniel Pinkham’s Fourth Symphony under the direction

of George Manos.

OTTO-WERNER MUELLER

Internationally recognized conductor and influential teacher Otto-Werner 

Mueller was only nineteen years old when he was appointed director ofthe 

chamber music department of Radio Stuttgart. He went on to conduct

operas and operettas for the City Theater of Heidelberg. The large number

of American troops stationed in Heidelberg after World War II led him to

form an orchestra for the dependents of military personnel, which he 

directed until 1951, when he immigrated to Canada. Subsequently, Mueller

worked for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, taught at the Montreal 

Conservatory, and served as guest conductor for all of the major orchestras

in Canada. He was frequently invited to conduct in the United States as

well, appearing with the National Symphony and the symphony orchestras

of Atlanta, Detroit, and Saint Louis. He also served as a visiting professor at

the Moscow State Conservatory and was guest conductor for the Moscow,

Leningrad, and Riga symphony orchestras.

3
In 1967 Mueller was appointed professor ofmusic at the University of

Wisconsin. From 1973 to 1987 he was conductor-in-residence at the Yale

School of Music, and since 1986 he has been the head ofthe conducting

department at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. He is conductor 

emeritus at the Juilliard School in New York, where he was director of

orchestral studies from 1987 to 2004. In these positions he has been a formative influence for hundreds of young musicians and dozens of conductors.

JUNG-MIN AMY LEE

A recent graduate ofthe Curtis Institute of Music, studying under Ida

Kavafian, Jung-min Amy Lee is only twenty-three years old yet has already

performed extensively throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Her 

concerto debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at age fifteen was followed

by performances with the Baden-Baden Philharmonic, the Curtis Chamber

Orchestra, and several other orchestras in the United States. She won first

prizes at San Francisco’s prestigious Irving M. Klein International String 

Competition and at the Corpus Christi International Competition for

piano and strings.

In addition to her career as a soloist, Lee has received widespread recognition as a chamber musician, performing on both the violin and the viola.

She is the first violinist ofthe Koryo String Quartet and has participated

in the chamber music programs ofsuch celebrated musical events as the

Aspen Festival, the Library of Congress Juilliard Quartet Seminar, the

Mozarteum Summer Academy in Salzburg, the New York String Orchestra

Seminar, the Sarasota Festival, and the Verbier Academy in Switzerland. 

Jung-min Amy Lee currently studies at the Juilliard School of Music in

New York City and has recently been added to the artist roster of Astral 

Artistic Services of Philadelphia.

4

Program Notes

Music lovers all over the world are poised to celebrate the 250th anniversary 

ofthe birth of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (January 27, 1756-December 5,

1791), baptized Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus but always

known by the shorter name. Son ofthe famous violinist and composer 

Leopold Mozart (1719-1787), Wolfgang Amadeus produced an extraordinary number of glorious pieces of music in his short life. Although he died

at only thirty-five, he had been a child prodigy who composed his first piano 

work at age five, a choral setting of a psalm at age nine, and an opera (La

Jinta semplice, K. 51) at age twelve.

Mozart wrote his last opera, Die Zauberflote, K. 620 (The Magic Flute), in

the spring and summer of 1791. In light ofthe profound meaning that subsequent generations have found in this work, it is surprising to see how

lightly Mozart took the task ofwriting it. In a letter ofJune 11, 1791, he wrote

to his wife, Constanze: “Today I composed from sheer boredom an aria for

my opera.... got up as early as half past four.” He put offwriting the overture

until two days before the opening performance, thus was able to quote in it

almost all ofthe major themes from the rest ofthe opera. The late completion ofthis overture gave rise to the legend, quite possibly based on fact,

that the copyist’s ink was still wet on some ofthe orchestra parts at the premiere performance. In spite ofthe fact that he was terminally ill at the time, 

Mozart attended several ofthe performances from the first run ofthe opera

in September and October 1791. For the October 14 performance, he invited

his colleague and not-so-secret rival, Antonio Salieri (1750-1825), to sit

in his box at the theater. Before retiring that night, Mozart wrote again to

Constanze: “At six o’clock I called in the carriage for Salieri.... [He] listened 

and watched most attentively... .There was not a single number that did not 

call forth from him a ‘bravo’ or a ‘bello!’” Witnesses to Mozart’s deathbed 

delirium on the night of December 4-5, 1791, recounted that he followed in

his imagination the progress ofthat night’s rendition of Die Zauberflote.

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Although primarily a keyboard performer, Mozart sometimes performed

in public on the violin and wrote five concertos for that instrument. He

would have learned much from his father, Leopold, a professional violinist

who wrote a major treatise on violin technique. The younger Mozart brought

many innovations to the solo concerto genre, which by 1775 had been firmly

established by the likes ofthe Bach family of composers and Joseph Haydn

(1732-1809). The opening movement begins with an energetic introduction, 

but no sooner has the soloist entered on a rising arpeggio than the mood 

changes to an expressive adagio. This interlude is short (six bars) and is followed by a repeat ofthe opening material, this time with a rhythmic descant 

for the solo instrument. The movement ends with a whimsical reiteration by

the solo violin ofits opening arpeggio.

The second movement, Adagio, may have been the inspiration for

Belmonte’s aria in act 1 of an opera Mozart composed in 1782, The

Abductionfrom the Seraglio. It has the large scale and deep emotional content ofthe second movements of his mature piano concertos. One ofthe

violinists who performed the Concerto in A Major during Mozart’s lifetime,

Gaetano Brunetti (1744-1798), found this part of it too mannered and 

requested a replacement from Mozart. The latter graciously obliged, dashing offthe Adagio in E Major, K. 261, which was used as the second movement in all of Brunetti’s subsequent performances ofthe concerto.

The third movement, Rondo: Tempo di menuetto, contrasts the opening

passage (the rondo proper, or the refrain) with passages of a starkly different character (the couplets, or episodes), between each of which the rondo

is repeated. It is one ofthese episodes, the one in which the players are

instructed to strike the strings with the wood of the bow, that gives this concerto its nickname, “Turkish.” With this percussive effect and the bizarre 

harmony ofthe passage, Mozart was treating his audience to a form of

musical humor that all recognized and enjoyed, namely the imitation, with

tongue in cheek, of Turkish military music. The Turks were a feared and

hated enemy in eighteenth-century Austria and were considered fair game 

for musical derision.

6

Although Mozart and his family were happy to return to Vienna in 1788,

after a sojourn in Prague, it was not an easy year for them. Debts continued

to mount, and they were obliged to move twice, each time to a smaller apartment to save on rent. A daughter, Teresia, died at the age ofsix months, and 

Mozart’s plans for a subscription concert series fell through. The initial

public response to the Viennese premiere of Don Giovanni was mixed, which 

disappointed Mozart, who was sure it would be an unmitigated success. By

way ofrefuge from this onslaught of bad news, he immersed himselfin

the creation ofthree symphonies, nos. 39, 40, and 41, which turned out to

surpass anything he had done in that genre.

Symphony No. 39 in E-flat Major opens with an Adagio, in which the

dotted rhythms are reminiscent ofthe French overtures of Couperin and

Lully. The movement ensues at a faster pace (allegro), with plentiful emotional and dramatic contrasts. The second movement, Andante con moto,

has a deceptively simple main theme that is transformed by artful polyphony

and daring modulations as the movement progresses. The courtly Menuetto:

Allegretto is a point of repose in the symphony. Its dignity is overturned by

the trio, however, in which two clarinets imitate the effect of a barrel organ. 

The final movement (Finale: Allegro) comes close in spirit to the finale of

Haydn’s Symphony No. 88 in G Major, which was completed one year earlier

(1787) and may or may not have been heard by Mozart. The sprightly nature

ofthe finale implies that composing it was a form of catharsis for the

composer, a temporary relieffrom the cares of everyday life.

Program notes by Sorab Modi