74TH SEASON 

OF CONCERTS

OCTOBER 11, 2015 • NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
Photo Francois Sechet

PROGRAM

3:30 • West Building, West Garden Court

Hermes Quartet

Omer Bouchez, violin

Elise Liu, violin

Yung-Hsin Chang, viola

Anthony Kondo, cello

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Quartet no. 14 in G Major, K. 387 ("Spring")

Allegro vivace assai

Menuetto

Andate cantabile

Molto allegro

Anton Webern (1883-1945)

Five Movements, op. 5

Heftig bewegt

Sehr langsam

Sehr lebhaft

Sehr langsam

In zarter bewegung

Intermission

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Quartet no. 74 in D Minor ("Death and the Maiden")

Allegro

Andante con moto

Scherzo: Allegro molto

Presto
The Musicians

The luminous talent of the Paris-based Hermes Quartet members has consistently brought

them acclaim. This season, the quartet performs in the United States at the National Gallery

of Art; the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston; Hayden's Ferry Chamber Music

Series, Tempe, Arizona; Wave Hill, New York; Chamber Music Society of Palm Beach; Alys

Stephens Performing Arts Center, Birmingham, Alabama; the Jewish Community Alliance,

Jacksonville, Florida; and the Morgan Library and Museum, New York. Their European

performance schedule includes festivals in France, Italy, Poland, Germany, Japan, South

America, and Switzerland.

The quartet's past performances have included concerts and festivals in Europe,

and recitals in the United States at the chamber music societies of Buffalo, Feldman,

and Williamsburg; the Lied Center of Kansas, the University of Georgia, the Friends of

Chamber Music in Texas, Iowa State University, University of Florida Performing Arts,

Peoples Symphony Concerts, the Port Washington Library, the Cosmos Club, Candlelight Concert Society, the Embassy Series, Schneider Concerts at The New School, and

at Rockefeller University.

Winner of the 2012 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, the Hermes 

Quartet made its US debuts at the opening concerts of the Young Concert Artists Series

at Carnegie's Zankel Hall and at the Kennedy Center's Terrace Theater. The quartet has

been awarded many prizes, including the 2013 NORDMETALL Ensemble Prize from the

Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. They have been first-prize winners at the 2011

Geneva International Music Competition, the 2011 European Young Concert Artists

Auditions in Leipzig, Germany, the 2010 European Chamber Music Competition in Paris,

and the 2009 Lyon International Music Competition. The quartet currently holds the Helen

F. Whitaker Chamber Music Chair of YCA and the Florence Gould Foundation Fellowship,

and is the Artist in Residence at the Queen Elisabeth Music Chapel in Brussels.

The members of the quartet met at the Lyon Conservatory and formed the ensemble

in 2008, under the tutelage of Zoltan Toth and Reiko Kitahama. They have worked with the

Artemis Quartet at the Universitat der Kunste Berlin, and studied at the Conservatoire a

Rayonnement Regional in Paris with members of the Ysaye Quartet.

4 * National Gallery of Art

Program Notes

Completed on December 31,1782, Mozart's String Quartet no. 14, K. 387 would serve as

the first of a set of six string quartets the composer would dedicate to Haydn. It had been

over nine years since Mozart had composed a string quartet, which, as a genre, was still

relatively young in its development. Upon moving to Vienna and encountering Haydn's 

landmark opus 33 string quartets (published in 1781), Mozart was inspired to return to the

medium. Haydn's influence is clearly heard throughout the six "Hadyn" quartets, which are

still considered Mozart's finest of the twenty-three quartets he wrote. In technique, variety,

ingenuity, and sheer musical brilliance, they constitute an important landmark of their own, 

equal to if not surpassing Haydn's models (at least up to that time). Together, the twelve

quartets of Mozart and Haydn combined comprise the first great watershed of Viennese

classical chamber music.

The first of these mature quartets opens with an allegro vivace of a technical

complexity that may not be apparent to the casual listener, with a much extended central

development section. The minuet brings curiously abrupt changes in dynamics, framing a

G minor trio. The slow movement introduces delicate melodic embellishment and the

appearance of a triplet accompaniment figure, introduced by the cello. The last movement

starts with a subject imitated contrapuntally by the other instruments of the quartet, and

this element of counterpoint is a continuing and important feature of the movement.

Austrian composer and conductor Anton Webern was a member of the Second

Viennese School. As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became 

one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique. His innovations regarding

schematic organization of pitch, rhythm, and dynamics were formative in the musical

technique later known as total serialism. While he was not a prolific composer—only

thirty-one of his compositions were published in his lifetime — his influence on later

composers was immense.

Like almost every composer who had a career of any length, Webern's music

changed over time. However, it is typified by very spartan textures, in which every note 

can be clearly heard; carefully chosen timbres, often resulting in very detailed instructions

to the performers and use of extended instrumental techniques; wide-ranging melodic lines,

often with leaps greater than an octave; and brevity: the Six Bagatelles for String Quartet

(1913), for instance, lasts about three minutes.

Webern's earliest works are in a late romantic style. They were neither published

nor performed in his lifetime, though they are sometimes performed today. Webern

composed the Five Movements in early summer 1909, a period during which he was in

close contact with Schoenberg. They are considered to be his first completely atonal

compositions, yet the anguished expressiveness of post-romanticism still lingers, particularly in the slow movements.

74th Season * 5
By Webemian standards, the Five Movements are long: about eleven minutes. The

overall structure is roughly akin to an arch form. A central scherzo is flanked by two movements marked Sehr langsam, both of which are thirteen measures long. The opening and

closing movements are somewhat larger scale, bookending the work. The score is so complex rhythmically, and the parts so closely intertwined, that all four players work from a full

score rather than from a single part. Webern's meticulous instructions for dynamics and

articulation invest his music with hypnotic power. Listening, you are likely to discover that

you have been holding your breath.

By the early 1800s, Vienna was a breeding ground for great composers and innovators in the music world. Continuing in the tradition of Haydn and Mozart, by the 1820s,

Beethoven had redefined the string quartet. Meanwhile, Franz Schubert was developing

his own underground reputation as a composer of lieder —setting German romantic poetry

to expressive songs. He knew that to gain any larger fame as a composer, he would have 

to take to bigger forms of music, and by the age of nineteen had composed eleven string

quartets. Though he took a brief hiatus from the medium, he returned to it in 1824, following

a period of serious illness, when he realized that he would not live much longer.

Schubert's 1817 song "Death and the Maiden" uses a poem by German composer

Matthias Claudius. In it, a young maiden encounters the figure of Death and pleads for her

life to be spared. Death is calmly insistent, convincing her that he is a friend and to come

to his arms. While Schubert uses the song as a basis for a set of variations in the quartet's

second movement, the overall tone of struggle against death seems to pervade the entire

work, perhaps due to his own fear of dying. Now considered one of the great pillars of the

chamber music repertoire, the quartet was not received well when it was first performed

in a private home in 1826. It was published in 1831.

6 * National Gallery of Art

The Seventy-Fourth Season of General Information

The William Nelson Cromwell and

F. Lammot Belin Upcoming Concerts

Poulenc Trio

Music by Copland, Prokofiev,

Stravinsky, and Weinberg

October 18, Sunday, 3:30

West Building, West Garden Court

Nordic Weekend Celebrating

150th Birthdays of Jean Sibelius

and Carl Nielsen

National Gallery of Art String Quartet

October 23, Friday, 12:00

West Building, West Garden Court

National Gallery of Art Piano Trio

October 24, Saturday, 12:00

West Building, West Garden Court

National Gallery of Art Orchestra

Peter Wilson, guest conductor

October 25, Sunday, 3:30

West Building, West Garden Court

Music by Sibelius and Nielson

Admission to the National Gallery of Art

and all of its programs is free of charge,

except as noted.

The use of cameras or recording equipment

during the performance is not allowed.

Please be sure that all portable electronic

devices are turned off.

Concerts are made possible in part

through the generosity of donors to the

National Gallery of Art through The Circle.

Reserved seating is available in recognition

of their support. Please contact the

development office at (202) 842-6450 or

circle@nga.gov for more information.

www.nga.gov

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The department of music produced these

program notes. Copyright © 2015 Board of

Trustees, National Gallery ofArt, Washington.

Cover Jacques Villon, Spanish Dancer (Danseuse

Espagnole) (detail), 1899, National Gallery of 

Art, Washington, Collection of Mr. and Mrs.

Paul Mellon. Back cover West Building, East

Garden Court, National Gallery of Art, Gallery

Archives © Dennis Brack/Black Star