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 of

the West Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

For the convenience of concertgoers the Garden Cafe

remains open until 6:00 pm for light refreshments.

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-eighth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,779th Concert

Ignacio Prego, harpsichordist

Presented in honor of The Sacred Made Real:

Spanish Painting and Sculpture, 1600-1700, and in

collaboration with the Embassy of Spain in honor of

Spain’s presidency in 2010 ofthe European Union

March 24, 2010 

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Admissionfree
Program

Sebastian Aguilera de Heredia (1565-1620)

Pange lingua (Sing, my tongue, the glorious battle)

Antonio de Cabezon (1510-1566)

Beata viscera Maria e Virginis— Canto Llano

(Blessed virgin womb of Mary; plainsong)

Luis de Milan (1500-1561)

Pavana (Pavane)

Anonymous

Chacona (Chaconne)

Cabezon

Diferencias sobre el Canto del Cavalier0

(Variations on “Song ofthe Cavalier”)

Diferencias sobre la Gallarda Milanesa

(Variations on “The Milanese Gaillard”)

Tiento XI Sexto tono (Eleventh Tiento on the sixth tone) 

Diferencias sobre Guardame las vacas

(Variations on “Herd the Cows for Me”)

Pavana con sus Glosas (A Pavane with its ornamentations)

Juan Cabanilles (1644-1712)

Corrente Italiana (Italian courante)

Paseo (Variations)

Tiento de ler tono (Tiento on the first tone)

Tiento de 50 tono (Tiento on the fifth tone)

Tiento de Batalla (Tiento ofbattle)

This concert is made possible in part by supportfrom the Embassy ofSpain

The Musician

Harpsichordist and pianist Ignacio Prego de Oliver has been praised for his

“projection and versatility,” by the Spanish daily newspaper El Mundo. Bom in

Madrid, Prego received his musical training in Spain and the United States, 

studying with the renowned pianist Luiz de Moura Castro at the Hartt School 

of Music in Connecticut. Currently, Prego is continuing his studies as a

specialist in the field of early music performance with harpsichordist Elizabeth Wright at the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University.

Prego has performed in recital and as an orchestral soloist in Italy, The

Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United States. He has given recitals in

important Spanish venues that include the Baiona International Piano Festival

in Galicia, the Ciclo de Camara de la Universidad Autonoma and Conde Duque

Auditorium in Madrid, and the Festival International de Segovia Fundacion

Juan de Borbon in Segovia. Outside of Spain he has performed at the Arnold

Schoenbergzaal and Stadhuis Den Haag (The Netherlands), the Centro 

Cultural Espanol (Miami), the Cervantes Institute (Chicago), and the Queen

Sofia Spanish Institute (New York). Last September Prego played his concerto

debut with the Chilean Symphony Orchestra at the National Auditorium in 

Madrid to great acclaim.

Prego has recorded for the Piccolo and Verso labels, including a live

concert in Madrid ofthe Beethoven Triple Concerto under the baton of Rainer

Steubing-Negenborn. A grand prize winner in several national and international competitions, Ignacio Prego has received prestigious performance

scholarships from the Spanish government and more recently from the Caja

Madrid Foundation, presented by His Royal Highness Prince Felipe at the

Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. Upcoming engagements

include concerts in New York, Madrid, Mexico City, and Ottawa.

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Program Notes

As keyboard music developed as an independent genre in the sixteenth and

seventeenth centuries, Spanish and Portuguese composers were neither as

numerous nor as prolific as their Italian contemporaries. Political structure

was a primary factor in this, as there were numerous kingdoms and duchies

in Italy, each ofwhich maintained a full retinue ofmusicians who doubled as

composers. On the Iberian peninsula, however, there were only four courts 

in which there was a rich musical environment—the Spanish royal court in 

Madrid, its Portuguese counterpart in Lisbon, and the ducal courts in Catalonia and Valencia (until they were absorbed by Spain in the early eighteenth

century). Linked by marriage and alliances to the Bourbon courts in Naples

and Vienna, the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs looked to Italy for talent

in both music and the visual arts and often hired Italians as their court musicians. The most notable example ofthis occurred in the eighteenth century

when Maria Magdalena Barbara (1711-1758), a daughter ofthe King of Portugal 

who later became Queen of Spain, hired the Neapolitan Domenico Scarlatti

(1685-1757) as teacher and master ofkeyboard instruments. In time, he

became one of Spain’s most famous musicians.

The Spanish composers represented on today’s program were exceptions to the trend ofimporting Italians to make music in Spain’s courts

and churches. Sebastian Aguilera de Heredia was born in a village in the

province of Aragon and is known to have played in the cathedral in Huesca

between 1585 and 1603. A monk as well as a musician, he advanced to a

more prestigious position as maestro de musica at Le Seo Cathedral in

Saragossa. He published a collection ofworks in 1618, and eighteen of

his keyboard works survive. He is considered the first major figure ofthe

Aragonese school ofmusic that centered in Saragossa.

The most famous Spanish composer before Domenico Scarlatti—who 

was, after all, an adopted Spaniard—was Antonio de Cabezon. A favorite 

of both Charles v of Spain and his son, Philip IV, Cabezon was blind,

but this did not stop him from composing and performing to the constant

4

amazement of his listeners at the court in Madrid. Among his various duties

as court organist was accompanying Philip on his many journeys in order

to entertain him by playing on a portative organ, which was dragged by

oxcart with the royal entourage to such far-flung destinations as England,

Germany, and The Netherlands. These trips enhanced Cabezon’s reputation,

because he was the talk ofthe court wherever Philip and his entourage paid

a visit. Cabezon was a master ofthe theme and variation form (diferencias),

which was very popular among his audiences, since he often improvised

variations on tunes they knew well. This afternoon’s program includes three

ofthe nine sets ofvariations by Cabezon that have survived. Cabezon and

Cabanilles also worked in the genre known as the tiento, which is related to

the fugue. Polyphonic in texture, it usually treats three or four themes in

short fugal passages, which are separated by interludes that are not polyphonic and sometimes present keyboard flourishes, duets, or ostinato

patterns. One of Cabezon’s pavanas is also represented, along with one by

Luis de Milan. This slow dance, with its characteristic long-short-short

rhythm, hesitation step, and proud, decorous posture, was well suited to

the serious atmosphere ofthe seventeenth-century Spanish court.

In spite ofhis name, Luis de Milan lived his entire life in Valencia. He 

was the first composer in history to publish music for the vihuela de mano,

an instrument employed primarily in the Iberian Peninsula and some ofthe

Italian states during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. He was also one

ofthe first musicians to specify tempo indications in his music. In 1535 he

published his first book, a parlor game with music, titled Eljuego de mandar

(The word game); in the next year he published what was to be his most

important book, Libro de musica de vihuela de mano intitulado El maestro (Book

ofmusic for the vihuela titled The Master). This book was dedicated to King

John III of Portugal. The dedication, written in Portuguese, suggests that Luis

de Milan may have traveled to that country and spent some time there.

5
Juan Cabanilles is often dubbed “the Spanish Bach’’ by Spanish music

historians, due to the fact that many ofhis compositions were advanced for

their time and highly virtuosic. Like Luis de Milan a Valencian, Cabanilles 

was the last ofthe Spanish mystic organists, who in their compositions and

improvisations held on to Renaissance mannerisms and modal harmonies in

an era when greater Europe was concerned with Baroque forms and major/ 

minor tonality. Although Cabanilles knew well the compositions ofthe Italian

and French schools, his works contain melodic turns and harmonic progressions that can be identified as particularly Spanish. Later Valencian composers

used his works as models, and his tientos are the forerunners of a later musical form—the sonata. Most ofCabanilles’ manuscripts are in The Library

ofCatalunya in Barcelona, which has published a number of volumes ofhis

keyboard compositions.

Program notes by Stephen Ackert, head ofthe music department, National

Gallery ofArt

The National Gallery extends its thanks to the Music Division of

the Library ofCongressfor the loan ofthe Hubbard and Broeckman

harpsichord used in this concert.

6

Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

Stanford Chamber Chorale

with

Chatham Baroque and National Gallery ofArt Chamber Players

“The Passion in Art”

Music by Johann Sebastian Bach

Presented in honor of The Sacred Made Real:

Spanish Painting and Sculpture, 1600-1700

Sunday, March 28, 2010

Preconcert talk in the West Building Lecture Hall at 6:00 pm

Concert at 6:40 pm in the West Building, West Garden Court