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

cover: Felicien Rops, Gaspard de la Nuit (detail), 1868,

National Gallery of Art, Washington, Rosenwald Collection

The Sixty-eighth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell

and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,737th Concert

National Gallery ofArt Wind Quintet

Sara Nichols, flute

Ronald Sipes, oboe

Christopher Hite, clarinet

Danny K. Phipps, bassoon

Theodore Peters, horn

Presented in honor of

The Darker Side of Light:

Arts ofPrivacy 1850-1900

October 7, 2009

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Admissionfree
Program

Paul Taffanel (1844-1908)

Quintette pour instruments a vent

Allegro con moto

Vivace

Adolphe Deslandres (1840-1911)

Trois pieces en Quintette

Andante

Scherzo

Allegro

Joseph Jongen (1873-1953)

Concertofor Woodwind Quintet, op. 124 (1942)

Moderement anime

Moderato espressivo

Deciso

The Musicians

Since the enthusiastic public reception ofits first concert in 1995, the National 

Gallery of Art Wind Quintet has become a regular feature ofthe Gallery’s

popular Sunday evening concerts. Founded by former National Gallery music

director George Manos, the ensemble explores and presents masterpieces of

chamber music that are not often heard as well as the standard classics for 

wind quintet. In 2007 the quintet was a featured resident ensemble at the

Amalfi Coast Music Festival in Vietri sul Mare, Italy.

SARA NICHOLS

Sara Nichols was principal flutist ofthe Baltimore Opera for twenty-one seasons, and is currently appearing with the Opera Theater of Saint Louis and

the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra. In addition to frequent appearances

with the National Gallery Orchestra, she performs at WolfTrap, most recently 

in the premiere ofJohn Musto’s Volpone. She was acting assistant principal

flutist ofthe Baltimore Symphony Orchestra for two seasons. Nichols is a

member of Quintigre, the wind quintet at Towson University in Towson, 

Maryland, and Pro Musica Rara, with which she will perform at the National

Gallery on November 4, 2009. She is a member ofthe music faculty ofthe

Baltimore School ofthe Arts.

RONALD SIPES

Oboist Ronald Sipes studied with Marc Lifschey and received bachelor and

master ofmusic degrees from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.

He has played principal oboe in the Orquesta Sinfonica de Castille y Leon

(Valladolid, Spain), the New World Symphony, and the Orquesta del Estado de 

Mexico. Since moving to the Northern Virginia area in 1994, Sipes has played 

with numerous orchestras and ensembles, including the National Gallery of

Art Orchestra, the Washington Opera, and the Theater Chamber Players.

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CHRISTOPHER HITE

Christopher Hite was bom in Columbus, Ohio, and raised in a musical family.

He received a bachelor of arts degree from Capital University, where he studied with his father, well-known clarinetist David L. Hite. He continued his

clarinet studies with Robert Marcellus, Earl Bates, Anthony Gigliotti and

Loren Kitt, receiving a master ofmusic degree from The Catholic University

of America. As a member ofthe United States Air Force Band from 1974 to

1997, he was a featured soloist on more than fifty performances worldwide.

Hite has performed regularly with many Washington area orchestras and

chamber ensembles, including The National Gallery ofArt Orchestra. Hite

serves as music director ofThe Dominion Symphony Orchestra, an ensemble that he and his wife founded in 1999. He has also been the music director

ofthe Manassas Ballet Theatre since 1997 He resides in Annandale, Virginia 

with his wife, flutist Angela Uperti-Hite and their son Benjamin.

DANNY K. PHIPPS

Danny K. Phipps is a graduate ofthe Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia,

where he was a student ofthe great bassoonist and pedagogue Sol Schoenbach. He earned the master of arts and the doctor ofmusical arts degrees

from The Catholic University of America. Phipps was principal bassoonist

with The United States Air Force Concert Band for twenty years, retiring in

2002. He held the rank ofChief Master Sergeant and served for many years

as the manager and chief personnel officer ofthe band. From 2002 to 2006

he served as associate dean ofthe Music School, director of graduate studies

in music, and professor ofbassoon and music history at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia. He is presently professor ofmusic and chair

ofthe department ofmusic and dance at Grand Valley State University in

Allendale, Michigan.

4

THEODORE PETERS

A graduate ofThe Curtis Institute of Music, French horn player Theodore

Peters studied hom with Mason Jones and chamber music with John deLancie.

He continued his studies as a member ofthe New World Symphony, under

the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas. He has served as principal French

horn player ofthe Baltimore Opera Company, the Chamber Orchestra of

Philadelphia, the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, and L’Orchestra Communale di Firenze. Peters is currently performing with many ensembles in the

Washington, DC, area, including the National Gallery Orchestra, the National

Theatre Orchestra, the Post-Classical Ensemble, the Richmond Symphony

Orchestra, and the WolfTrap Opera Company.

Program Notes

The art ofthe late nineteenth century largely connotes impressionism, paintings of cafe-concerts and the open air that invoke the entertainments of city

life and the pleasures of the landscape. A less familiar side to the story exists, 

one in a realm ofsober contemplation and recherche. These sometimes

enigmatic and often melancholy subjects explore an altogether different

dimension of aesthetic experience and appreciation. In this discreet world

ofindividual collecting, prints, drawings, and small sculpture were kept

aside in portfolios or stored away in cabinets for more purposeful, private

study, much like taking a book from the shelffor quiet enjoyment.

The Darker Side ofLight: Arts ofPrivacy 2850-1900, the exhibition currently on view in the National Gallery’s prints and drawings galleries,

includes more than a hundred works in the Gallery’s extensive collections

that reflect this late-Romantic sensibility. Such an encounter with art was a

private affair that often encouraged the investigation of highly suggestive,

5
sometimes disturbing subject matter. These complex states ofmind and 

symptoms of deep social tension surfaced in opium dreams, obsessions over

a lover, despairing contemplations ofsuicide, and abject meditations on

violence and death. By no means restricted to the visual arts, this somber

aesthetic found voice in poetry, prose, theater, and, not least, music. This

milieu attracted the talents of academically trained artists, realists, impressionists, and especially symbolists. Much like their musical counterparts,

symbolist artists in particular sought to dissolve any simple equation

between the experience of art and the empirical world.

Paul Taffanel was a major performer, conductor, and composer in late

nineteenth-century France. A professor offlute at the Paris Conservatory, he 

played and conducted at the Paris Opera. In 1871 he was a founding member

ofthe Societe Nationale de Musique, which also counted among its members Claude Debussy and Gabriel Faure. His highly original Quintetfor Wind

Instruments is representative ofthe music produced by composers who were

influenced by the symbolist movement.

Adolphe Deslandres was the organist of Saint Mary’s church in Paris

in the 1860s, and most ofhis works are known only to organists. One exception is his Three Piecesfor Quintet, which has become part ofthe standard

repertoire for wind quintet. A conservative among romantic composers, 

Deslandres nevertheless wrote chamber music that is substantial, witty, and

gracefully crafted.

Belgian composer Joseph Jongen studied composition with Richard

Strauss, and counted among his friends and colleagues Gabriel Faure and

Vincent d’Indy. Jongen taught at the Brussels Conservatory and in 1925

became its director. His musical style is richly romantic, drawing inspiration

as much from Mendelssohn and Chopin as from Wagner and Franck. A

superb colorist, especially in his chamber music, Jongen seems most aligned

with the aesthetics of Faure, although tending more frequently toward the 

grand gesture, as exemplified in the works of Franck and Wagner. His

Concertofor Woodwind Quintet, op. 124, is an atmospheric work with many

mood shifts.

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Upcoming Concerts at the National Gallery of Art

Washington Choral Arts Society

Norman Scribner, director

with

Douglas Riva, pianist

Music by Granados and other Spanish composers

October 11, 2009

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court 

Presented in honor of

The Art ofPower: Royal Armor and Portraitsfrom Imperial Spain

Chiara String Quartet

Quartets by Debussy, Prokofiev, and Webern

October 14, 2009

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Presented in honor of

The Darker Side ofLight: Arts ofPrivacy, 1850-1900