Concerts at the National Gallery of Art

Under the direction ofGeorge Manos

October and November 2002

October

13 Musica ad Rhenum Music by eighteenthcentury French composers

20 U.S. Naval Academy Music for men’s chorus by

Men’s Glee Club Viadana, Schiitz, Riegger, Randall

John Barry Talley, director Thompson, and other composers

27 Orpheus String Quartet Mozart: Quartet, K. 590

Wolf: Italian Serenade

Beethoven: Quartet, Op. 95

November

3 Carol Wincenc,/7Mtist Works for solo flute by Lukas Foss,

J. S. Bach, Enesco, and other

composers

10 Jeffrey Kahane, pianist Faure: Nocturne in D-flat Major

Albeniz: Iberia, Book /

Hersch: 24 Variations

17 Beverly Benso, contralto Webern: Eight Early Songs

George Manos, pianist Poulenc: Eight Early Songs

Mark Fax: Five Black Songs

Britten: A Charm ofLullabies

Manos: Kykleion Asma

For the convenience of concertgoers,

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

The use ofcameras or recording equipment during

the performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell

phones, pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off

The Sixty-first Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery ofArt

2428th Concert

NATIONAL GALLERY ORCHESTRA

GEORGE MANOS, conductor

Sunday Evening, 6 October 2002

Seven O’clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
PROGRAM

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Overture to the Marriage of Figaro, K. 492

(1756-1791) (1786)

Gabriel Faure

(1845-1924)

Pavane, Op. 50

(1887)

Gabriel Faure Pelleas and Melisande Suite, Op. 80

(1898)

Prelude

Entr’acte-Fileuse

Sicilienne

La mort de Melisande-Adagio molto

INTERMISSION

Felix Mendelssohn Symphony No. 5 in D Minor (“Reformation”)

(1809-1847) Op. 107 (1829)

Andante; Allegro con fuoco

Allegro vivace

Andante

Chorale: Ein’ feste Burg ist unser Gott

Andante con moto; allegro vivace;

allegro maestoso; piu animato poco a poco

Conductor, composer, and pianist George Manos has been director of

music at the National Gallery of Art and conductor of the National 

Gallery Orchestra since 1985. He is also artistic director ofthe American 

Music Festival and of the National Gallery vocal and chamber 

ensembles, which he founded. Manos’ career as a performing pianist and

teacher has included several years on the faculty of The Catholic

University of America in Washington, DC, where he taught piano,

conducting, and chamber music. In addition, he held the directorship of

the Wilmington, Delaware, School of Music, presenting an annual jazz

festival and clinic. Maestro Manos founded and directed for ten years the

renowned Kilamey Bach Festival in the Republic of Ireland and was the

music director of the 1992 Scandinavian Music Festival in Kolding,

Denmark.

Mozart had already completed his second grand opera, Der

Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario, K. 486), when he was commissioned by the

emperor of Austria to compose another. Figaros Hochzeit (The Marriage

ofFigaro, K. 492) was first performed in Vienna in 1786, less than three

months after the first performance of Der Schauspieldirektor. Figaro,

although well liked by the Viennese public, was withdrawn after its ninth

performance. The performances brought on so many encores that the

opera lasted twice as long as originally written, and this was

unacceptable to the producers. Theater managers in Prague, on the other 

hand, seemed to have no problem with the opera’s length when it was

performed there the following year. So spectacular was its reception that

Mozart could report to his father: “Here they talk of nothing but Figaro;

scrape, blow, sing, and whistle nothing but Figaro....”

Critic and music writer Scott Goddard observed in his review of a

performance of this superb work that “The unexpected misunderstandings, 

the deliberate deceptions, the heartbreak, the laughter, all those

intriguing ingredients of the complicated plot are mirrored in the

overture to Mozart’s masterly comedy.... The overture is an exquisitely 

poised example ofthe first movement of a symphony in shortened form,
without a slow introduction. In [such a] circumstance, that would have

been out of keeping with the breathless comedy about to be played.”

Dedicated to the Viscountess Elizabeth Greffulhe and first performed 

in Paris in 1888, the Pavane, Op. 50, by Faure is scored for small

orchestra with a discretionary choir that is seldom used in performances. 

A dance genre emanating from the Renaissance period, the pavane was

primarily a stately dance used during processionals. According to

bibliographer Linda Mack, Faure recounted the manner in which the

Pavane came about in a letter to his second wife, Marie: “While I was

thinking about a thousand different things of no importance whatsoever, 

a kind of rhythmical theme in the style of a Spanish dance took form in

my brain.... This theme developed by itself, became harmonized in

different ways, changed and modulated; in effect, it germinated by

itself.” The work opens with the strings playing a pizzicato 

accompaniment, which is soon joined by an exquisite flute melody that,

according to one of Faure’s chief biographers, Robert Orledge, is one of

his “most memorable inventions [and is] on par with that of the

contemporary Clair de lune.” This melody is shared alternately with the

oboes and clarinets in a combination that proclaims gentility forged on to

greater heights by a high degree of inspiration. However, at the same

time, its quintessential enchantment appears to personify the composer’s

own unique temperament.

Faure’s incidental music for Pelleas et Melisande was written for a

London production ofthe drama by the Belgian playwright, essayist, and

poet Maurice Maeterlinck (1861-1949). It was performed at the Prince

of Wales’ Theatre in London on 21 June 1898. From the original score a

concert suite emerged, consisting ofthe Prelude (Quasi adagio), evoking

the forest scene meeting of Golaud and Melisande; Fileuse (Andantino),

a spinning song that has a Mendelssohnian overtone; Sicilienne, a work 

Faure had written for another venture; and La mort de Melisande

(Adagio molto). This concluding movement, “combining despair and

resignation in face of the inevitable oppression and injustice of death,

conveys all of Maeterlinck’s complex thought through the simplest and

most modest means” (Claude Rostand). The work, scored for two flutes,

two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, two trumpets,

timpani, two harps, and strings, was first performed by the Orchestre des

concerts Lamoureux on 23 February 1901 in Paris and is the only stage

music by Faure that has gained eminence and a permanent place in the

repertoire.

Bom into a prominent German Jewish family, Felix Mendelssohn was

baptized into the Protestant faith in 1816, along with a number of other

members of his family. In 1830, when the composer was twenty-one

years old, Protestants in Germany prepared to celebrate the threehundredth anniversary ofthe Augsburg Confession, drawn up by the first

generation of Lutherans in 1530. Mendelssohn’s active participation in

the celebration took the form of a symphony. Originally conceived as A

Symphony for the Festival of the Reformation of the Church, the work

eventually came to be known as the composer’s Fifth Symphony, even

though it was composed earlier than his second, third, and fourth

symphonies. The so-called “Dresden” Amen from the Lutheran liturgy

introduces the first movement. This motivic element also figures in

Wagner’s Parsifal as a “Holy Grail” theme. The second and third

movements have no obvious connection to religious music, but the

fourth is a festive and highly contrapuntal finale that culminates in a

rendition of the chorale Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott. Critic John N.

Burk’s praise for Mendelssohn includes the following observation about

the D Major Symphony. “The steady and noble chorale subject and the

beautiful ‘Amen’ cadence, with all their associations, are developed in

unchurchly [sic] symphonic fashion. The music bespeaks his personal

style, [and is] fervid in melody, lucid in orchestration, felicitous in detail,

and Mendelssohnian in every bar.”

Program notes by Elmer Booze