Abime des oiseaux (Abyss of the Birds) is the third movement

from Messiaen’s Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of

Time). Messiaen wrote the quartet during World War II, when he was a

prisoner of war in Silesia. He scored it for violin, clarinet, cello, and

piano, so that he and fellow musicians among the prisoners could play

the first performance in the camp. Abime des oiseaux features the clarinet 

in solo. By way of explaining this movement, Messiaen states: “The

abyss is Time, with its sadnesses and tediums. The birds are the opposite 

of time; they are our desire for light, for stars, for rainbows, and for

jubilant outpourings of song!”

Considered by the distinguished English musicologist and writer 

on music Percy Scholes (1877-1958) to be the “greatest showpiece in the

whole repertory of the clarinet,” the Grand duo concertant in E-flat

Major, Op. 48, by Carl Maria von Weber, is a tour de force for both the

clarinetist and the pianist. The scintillating passages for each instrument 

are not for the faint-hearted. Enamored with the brilliant playing of the

celebrated German clarinetist Heinrich Barmann (1784-1847), Weber

felt challenged to compose a work for him that would be worthy of his

genius. The resulting duo not only added in its own day to the growing

appreciation of the clarinet but has also stood the test of time to compete

with the popularity of the works for clarinet by Mozart and Brahms.

Speaking about the effectiveness of the work, clarinetist and writer 

Carlton Jackson remarks: “The Grand duo embodies every kind of

[masterful] effect—melody, intense evocation of mood, and coloratura 

fireworks. The final movement alone shows off dare-devil leaps, diatonic

and chromatic runs, and technical challenges of every sort in a rollicking

climax hard to imagine (let alone perform) on any other instrument.”

Programs notes by Elmer Booze

For the convenience of concertgoers

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:30 p.m.

The Sixty-first Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2450th Concert

ALEXANDER FITERSTEIN, clarinetist

DAVID RILEY, pianist

Sunday Evening, 9 March 2003

Seven O’clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
Program

Ernest Chausson

(1855-1899)

Andante and Allegro for Clarinet and Piano

(1881)

Robert Schumann

(1810-1856)

Three Romances for Clarinet and Piano

Op. 94 (1849)

Nicht schnell (Not fast)

Einfach, innig (Simple, with tenderness)

Nicht schnell (Not fast)

Francis Poulenc

(1899-1963)

Sonata for Clarinet and Piano

(1962)

Allegro tristamente 

Romanza 

Allegro con fuoco

Intermission

Olivier Messiaen

(1908-1992)

Carl Maria von Weber

(1786-1826)

Abime des oiseaux

(1891)

Grand duo concertant 

Op. 48 (1862-1865)

Allegro con fuoco

Andante con moto

Rondo: Allegro

The use of cameras or recording equipment during

the performance is not allowed. Please he sure that cell

phones, pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off.

The Musicians

Clarinetist Alexander Fiterstein won first prize in the 2001 Young

Concert Artists International Auditions. Later that year, he received first

prize in the 2001 Carl Nielsen International Clarinet Competition as well

as special prizes for the best interpretation of a Danish work and the best

performance with the Odense Symphony Orchestra. In addition, he won

the Francois Scapira Prize for woodwinds and the special prize for best

performance of the Israeli composition at the Aviv Israel Competitions

for Young Musicians, the first prize at the Paul Ben-Haim Competition

in Israel, and awards from the America-Israel Cultural Foundation. Since

winning these awards, Fiterstein has given performances at such wellknown venues as Boston’s Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum, New York’s

92nd Street Y, the “Music at the Supreme Court” series, and the Kennedy

Center’s Terrace Theater. The reviewer for the Washington Post wrote of

Fiterstein’s March 2002 Terrace Theater recital: “He treats his instrument

as his personal voice, dazzling in its spectrum of colors, agility, and

range.” Fiterstein has also performed outside the United States in

England, Holland, Germany, Latvia, Israel, and Japan. As a soloist with

orchestras, he has performed with the Tokyo Philharmonic, the Danish

National Radio Symphony, the Odense Symphony Orchestra, and the

Israel Chamber Orchestra.

Alexander Fiterstein was born in Minsk, Byelorussia, and when

he was two years old his family migrated to Israel. His musical education

began at the Israel Arts and Science Academy and continued in the

United States at the Interlochen Arts Academy, where he received his

high school diploma. He received the bachelor of music degree and a

graduate diploma from the Juilliard School of Music, where he worked

with Charles Neidich.

Pianist David Riley has extensive experience as a solo and

collaborative pianist, having performed at the Dame Myra Hess Series in

Chicago, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Phillips

Collection in Washington, the 92nd Street Y in New York, Bellas Artes

in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and the Salle de Concert Pollack in Montreal,
among others. He has performed for dozens of radio broadcasts

throughout North America on CBC National Radio, National Public

Radio, and WQXR in New York City. This concert season Riley

performs at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall on two occasions, at the

Sonoklect Contemporary Music Festival in Virginia, and at Merkin Hall

with the New York Philharmonic Chamber Players. He holds degrees

from the Cleveland Institute of Music and the Eastman School of Music,

where he studied with Anne Epperson and Jean Barr, respectively.

Alexander Fiterstein and David Riley appear at the National Gallery by

arrangement with Young Concert Artists, Inc., of New York City.

Program Notes

Ernest Chausson’s Andante and Allegro for clarinet and piano reveals the

interest he had in the clarinet from his student days and his willingness to

explore its possibilities as a solo instrument. Chausson’s only work in

this genre, the sonata was composed during the first of three periods in

his musical development. The period between 1878 and 1887 was for

Chausson a time of experimentation and exploration. His music during

those years reveals a personal image influenced by two of his mentors,

Cesar Franck (1822-1890) and Jules Massenet (1842-1912). Unique

timbres and sonorous elements derived from the music of Richard

Wagner (1813-1883) also color Chausson’s works. It is probably no

coincidence that during that same nine-year span Chausson amassed a

significant collection of paintings by the emerging school of

experimental French artists who came to be known as the impressionists.

As he composed the Andante and Allegro, Chausson was striving

for perfection and recognition as a bona fide composer among the

musical elite of his day. He had chosen music as a profession late in life,

having previously earned a doctorate in law. In just two short

movements, Chausson explores the wide range of the clarinet as well as

the multifaceted hues found within its designated registers. In addition,

“he employed shapely melodic lines, elegant harmonies and a style

which, though sober, is more alive to pretty ideas than to depth of

feeling....” (The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians).

Despite his late musical beginning, Chausson cultivated and maintained a

characteristic style that eventually gained legitimacy for him in the

composers’ pantheon.

Schumann’s Three Romances, Op. 94, for clarinet and piano were

originally written for oboe and piano, with an alternate version for violin

or clarinet. These three works began life in 1848, when Schumann

experimented with writing for woodwind instruments. Other works for

wind instruments followed in quick succession: Phantasiestiicke, Op. 73,

for clarinet and piano; Adagio and Allegro, Op. 70, for horn and piano;

and Mdrchenerzdhlungen (Fairy Tales), Op. 132, for clarinet, viola, and

piano. Op. 94 was written during the continental revolutions of 1848 that

began in France, where the issue was universal suffrage. Elsewhere in

Europe, a series of political and economic revolts caused widespread

unrest and anxiety. However, these Romances indicate no emotional

strains on Schumann’s part. On the contrary, as expressed by James

Lyons in the American Record Guide: “In these fetching tableaux we

hear only Schumann the poet, dreamily speaking of matters far beyond

the temporal sphere.”

Dedicated to his friend and colleague Arthur Honegger, Poulenc’s

Sonata for Clarinet and Piano was commissioned by and composed for

the renowned American clarinetist and bandleader Benny Goodman

(1909-1986). Goodman, with Leonard Bernstein as his accompanist,

gave the premiere of the work April 1963 in New York City, two months

after Poulenc’s death. The composer was an iconoclastic member of Les

Six, a radical group of French composers who turned their backs on

conventional music writing in favor of a “new” or more “modern” sound.

The opening movement (Allegro tristamente) favors the clarinet and

carries with it an emotionally dispirited flavor that speaks of the “bluesy”

nightclubs of the Tin Pan Alley days. The second movement (Romania)

is, as its title suggests, a hauntingly beautiful song of love and longing.

The third movement (Allegro con fuoco) calls to mind a sardonically

gleeful musical sprint. The mood is interrupted by a euphonious middle

section containing a reminder of the first movement theme. The

movement ends with an undisciplined coda.