For the convenience of concertgoers 

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:oo pm.

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.

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-sixth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery of Art

2,641st Concert

The Voices of London

Kym Amps, soprano

Angus Davidson, countertenor

Robin Doveton, tenor

Simon Grant, bass

Presented in honor ofJ. M.W. Turner

October 14, 2007

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Benjamin Cooke (1734-1793)

In the Merry Month ofMay

Deh! Dove?

Lord Mornington (Garret Wesley) (1735-1781)

On Walking in Westminster Abbey

William Crotch (1775-1847)

How Dear Are Thy Counsels

Thomas Attwood (1765-1838)

Teach Me, O Lord

Samuel Arnold (1740-1802)

In Summer’s Cool Shade

Samuel Webbe (1740-1816)

Breathe Sofi, Ye Winds

Now I’m Prepared

Richard John Samuel Stevens (1757-1837)

From Oberon in Fairyland

INTERMISSION

Stevens

Ye Spotted Snakes

John Callcott (1766-1821)

Ella

It Was a Friar ofOrders Grey

Cara, vale

In the Lonely Vale

Traditional Scottish Songs (arranged by Robin Doveton)

Comin through the Rye

The Banks o’Doon

The Bluebells ofScotland

R. Mellish (1777-1817) (arranged by Robin Doveton)

Drink to Me Only with Thine Eyes

J. Hook (1746-1827) (arranged by Robin Doveton)

The Lass ofRichmond Hill

The Musicians

Since its professional debut in 1970, the vocal quartet known as The Voices of

London has given more than 2,500 concerts in more than fifty countries—a

record rivaled by very few ensembles in the field of chamber music. It has

performed in many ofthe world’s most famous concert halls, from New

York’s Lincoln Center, London’s Royal Festival Hall, and the Sydney Opera

House to smaller, more intimate venues such as the Brahmssaal in Vienna

and Wigmore Hall in London. Critics and audiences alike acclaimed the

Voices’ sparkling perfonnances that are often enlivened with humorous

commentary. The original members held vocal scholarships in the famous

choir of King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, and called themselves The

Scholars of London. The group began as an all-male ensemble, but as early

as 1972 a female voice was added, bringing a new dimension to both sound

and repertoire.

Soprano Kym Amps joined The Scholars of London in T984. She has a

flourishing career as a concert and recital artist, performing in many prestigious concert halls in Europe, including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam,

the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, and the Purcell Room in London. She won the

prestigious Maggie Teyte Award and was runner-up in the first Elly Ameling

Competition. She is a specialist in music by female composers, which she

researches and performs frequently on radio and television. Her discography includes Bach’s Saint John Passion; Couperin’s Trois Legons de Tenebres;

Handel’s Dixit Dominus, Messiah, and Regina caeli; Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas,

The Fairy Queen, and The Indian Queen; Rossini’s Petite Messe solenelle; and

Rutter’s Magnificat.

Countertenor Angus Davidson was born in Stevenage, Hertfordshire, and

began his musical studies when only eight years old. He later won a choral

scholarship to study music at Madgalen College, Oxford, then received

intensive vocal training at the Royal College of Music in London. In 1986

he received his degree from the Royal College, and he joined The Voices of

London. Davidson is a permanent professional member ofthe renowned

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choir at London’s Westminster Cathedral, and has a busy career as a soloist

and as a consort singer with other renowned ensembles, including the

English Concert and the Gabrieli Consort. He was recently featured as

a soloist in Bach’s Mass in B Minor, with Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the

Monteverdi Choir.

Tenor Robin Doveton began to study piano, violin, and voice when he was

thirteen. In 1964 he won a choral scholarship to sing in the choir of King’s

College, Cambridge, and he later earned a degree in music, specializing in

composition under Alan Ridout. Upon graduating in 1968, Doveton sang in 

several professional vocal ensembles and became a founding member ofThe

Scholars of London. Doveton’s folksong arrangements are an indispensable 

part ofThe Voices of London’s concert and recorded repertoire, and his

compositions are sung by them and by English cathedral choirs. In 1993 he 

founded the chamber choir Vocalis in Frankfurt, Germany.

Bass Simon Grant studied singing at the Guildhall School of Music and

Drama in London. He began his varied career as a member of the bbc

Singers and sang with the Swingle Singers for several years. His mastery of

extended vocal techniques has led to appearances with the contemporary

music groups Electric Phoenix and Ensemble Moderne. He can whistle and 

sing at the same time and can be heard w histling on the soundtracks ofthe 

films Shrek and Shiner. Grant has also been much in demand in the fields

of medieval, Renaissance, and baroque music. His concert schedule takes

him to Australia, Europe, Japan, New Zealand, and the United States for

much ofthe year. His many solo recordings include Charpentier’s Missa

Assumpta est Maria and Be Deum and Monteverdi’s Magnificat and Vespers.

In 2001 Grant appeared in Purcell’s Dido and Aeneas on London’s South

Bank, in celebration ofthe Royal Festival Hall’s fiftieth anniversary.

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Program Notes

The Voices of London makes this special appearance at the National Gallery

to sing British music composed between 1750 and 1835 in honor ofthe 

exhibition J. M.W. Turner, the largest and most comprehensive retrospective 

ofTurner’s work ever presented in the United States. One ofthe greatest 

landscape painters in the history' of art, Joseph Mallord William Turner

(1775-1851) assayed a wide range ofsubjects in his art, including seascapes,

topographical views, historical events, mythology, modern life, and views

from his imagination in paintings and watercolors that are among the bestknown and most admired works ofthe nineteenth century. Turner’s works

helped define the artistic movement known as romanticism, and his renderings ofsubtle effects oflight and atmosphere in limitless spaces epitomized

contemporary notions of the sublime. Celebrated for his prodigious talent

and his technical innovations, Turner’s achievement was crucial not only to

the romantic movement, but also to impressionism.

Turner’s sketchbooks reveal that he loved music. In the Tabley Sketchbook no. 3, part ofTurner’s bequest to the Tate Gallery, there are snatches

of music notation, including a melody to be sung to the lyric “Drink to

Me Only with Thine Eyes "by Ben Jonson (1572-1637). Among Turner’s

close friends in the 1790s was the composer John Danby (1757-1798).

When Danby died, his widow, Sarah, went to live with Turner. There is no

record oftheir having married, but a daughter was born to them in 1801.

Turner biographer James Hamilton mentions the artist’s enjoyment of

Danby’s glees and catches, which were published in 1798 in three volumes 

as a memorial tribute to the composer.

The program begins with the work of Benjamin Cooke, organist in the 

1780s at both Westminster Abbey and the Church of Saint Martin in the

Fields, London. His skill at composing glees (pieces for three or more voices

in a vigorous and simple style) earned him several prizes from the Noblemen’s and Gentlemen’s Catch Club. The club was an informal organization

ofmusic l overs that began issuing prizes for new songs in 1763 and brought
to prominence several ofthe composers represented in this program. It

took its name from another popular musical genre ofthe time, the catch,

which was similar to the glee, except that catches were distinguished by

their consistently frivolous or bawdy texts.

Garret Wesley, the first Earl of Mornington, earned the favor of George in

due to his musical talent. The popularity of Wesley’s music was short-lived,

but his family was catapulted to fame and honor when his second son 

became the Duke of Wellington. William Crotch and Thomas Attwood both 

distinguished themselves as composers of English church music. Crotch

was a child prodigy, who was able at age four to amaze the British royal

family in a command performance at Buckingham Palace. At age fifteen,

he was named organist at Christ Church, Oxford, then, as now, one ofthe 

most prestigious musical appointments in England. He eventually received

a professorship at Oxford, and he became the first member ofthat faculty

to lecture on the history, theory, and aesthetics of music. A talented artist

as well as a musician, Crotch remained active as an amateur draftsman

throughout his life, even after retiring from public performance and teaching. His contemporary Thomas Attwood received a royal scholarship in 1785

to study in Vienna, where he seized the opportunity to study with Wolfgang

Amadeus Mozart, who wrote of him, “[Attwood] partakes more ofmy style

that any other scholar I have had.” Attwood also formed a friendship

with Felix Mendelssohn, who was his houseguest whenever the German

composer visited England.

Samuel Arnold made his mark as an opera composer in an age when 

opera in England was still in its infancy. In 1764 he was engaged as harpsichordist and composer to Covent Garden, where he compiled and directed 

several pastiche operas, including The Maid ofthe Mill (1765), which is

among the supreme examples ofthe form. Five years later Arnold bought

Marylebone Gardens, a popular venue for concerts and entertainments, and

during the next six summers he produced several short burlesque operettas, 

popularly identified at the time as burlettas. Samuel Webbe was prolific

in the production of glees and catches, and subsequent generations have

acknowledged him as England’s leading composer in those genres.

6

Richard John Samuel Stevens was a member ofthe Noblemen’s and

Gentlemen’s Catch Club as well as two other societies for the propagation of

music, the Glee Club and the Je Ne Sais Quoi Club. His glees are among the

most polished ofthe period. John Callcott, on the other hand, was unknown

and his music unsung in London until Stevens and the other Club members

awarded him three prizes in 1785.

Due to the particular circumstances of British history, Scottish folk

culture has served a dual purpose in the British Isles. In addition to being

seen as an unselfconscious and separate tradition within Britain, this culture

has also produced a large number of “national” songs that embrace rather

than distinguish the four nations that make up the United Kingdom (England, Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland). Scottish songs such as Auld

Lang Syne, Loch Lomond, and the songs that make up the final portion ofthis 

program are beloved in all parts ofthe British Isles and in English-speaking 

countries throughout the world. They are readily recognized as British (all

too often as “English”) in other lands as well.

Program notes by Sorab Modi

Next Week at the National Gallery' ofArt

Amanda Pitt, soprano

David Owen Norris, pianist

Music by Braham, Debussy, Haydn, and Vaughan Williams

Presented in honor ofJ. M.W. Turner

October 21, 2007

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building Lecture Hall