difficult keyboard works—one that requires physical stamina in addition

to digital virtuosity of the highest caliber. After hearing it, Aaron

Copland (1900-1990) wrote: “Nothing could be more characteristically 

Bartok than this sonata with its Hungarian folk tunes, its incisive rhythms

[and] its hard, unsentimental quality.” These elements are manifested

through his percussive handling of the piano and his judicious placing of

acrimonious harmonies, including music written in several keys at once

(polytonality). The rhythms Bartok uses are not only incisive but also

complex, as two time signatures (one in each hand) are sometimes

performed simultaneously (polyrhythm).

Although it seems at first hearing to be a renegade work unrelated

to its musical progenitors, Sonata (1926) holds steadfast to the classical

sonata format. Throughout the work, themes from Hungarian folk music

are present; Bartok manipulated them expressively to create his highly

original melodic lines and harmonies. Assessing the significance of the

work after its premiere performance in 1926, the American music critic

Lawrence Gilman (1878-1939) stated in the New York Times: “We feel

in Bartok’s music a quality that William James [1842-1910, exponent of

pragmatism] would have called ‘tough-minded’....It has logic,

coherence, intellectual clarity, and vigor. It has sinews as well as gray

matter.”

Program notes by Elmer Booze

The Sixty-second Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2474th Concert

JORGE FEDERICO OSORIO,pianist

Presented in honor ofthe 25th anniversary ofthe East Building

ofthe National Gallery of Art

Sunday Evening, 30 November 2003

Seven O'clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Ludwig van Beethoven

(1770-1827)

Program

Variations in F Major 

Op. 34

Robert Schumann Fantasy in C Major

(1810-1856) Op. 17

Intermission

Manuel de Falla

(1876-1946)

Pieces espagnoles

(1902-1908)

Aragonesa

Cubana

Montanesa

Andaluza

Bela Bartok

(1881-1945)

Sonata (1926)

Allegro moderato

Sostenuto e pesante

Allegro molto

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

For the convenience ofconcertgoers, the Garden Cafe

remains open until 6:30 p.m.

The Musician

Mexican pianist Jorge Federico Osorio has received international

acclaim for his superb musicianship and absolute command of the

instrument. He has performed with many of the woild s leading

orchestras, including the Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, and Seattle Symphony

Orchestras, the Concertgebouw Orchestra, and the Israel Philharmonic

Orchestra. Osorio has performed under many distinguished conductors,

among them Lorin Maazel, Bernard Haitink, Klaus Tennstedt, Eduardo

Mata, Jorge Mester, and Lukas Foss. Osorio’s concert tours have taken

him to Europe, Asia, and North, Central, and South America. After 

Osorios’s 1977 Tully Hall recital at New York City’s Lincoln Center,

Peter G. Davis of the New York Magazine wrote: “His first concert

hereabouts in some time was a richly satisfying one. I wonder how many

other pianists around today can so completely immerse themselves in

such different musical worlds [as those of Haydn and Prokofiev] and

depict them all with comparable skill and commitment.”

Osorio has made numerous radio recordings for Japan’s NKH,

Belgian Radio, and the BBC. His discography is extensive: he has

recorded a wide variety of repertoire for the EMI, CBS, Artek, IMP, and

ASV labels. In addition, he recorded an all-Brahms program that the

British magazine Gramophone proclaimed “one of the most

distinguished discs of Brahms’ piano music in recent years. An aits 

administrator as well as a pianist, Osorio is artistic director of the

Brahms Music Festival in Mexico. As a chamber musician, he has

performed with the late Henryk Szeryng, the Moscow Quartet, the Tel

Aviv Quartet, violinist Mayumi, and cellist Richard Markson.

A former pupil of his mother, Luz Maria Puente, Bernard

Flavigny, Monique Haas, Jacob Milstein, Nadia Reisenberg, and

Wilhelm Kempff, Osorio studied at the conservatories of Mexico City,

Paris, and Moscow. Winner of the Rhode Island International Master 

Piano Competition and a recipient of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra s

Gina Bachauer Award, Jorge Federico Osorio appears at the National

Gallery by arrangement with Performing Arts Consultants of Highland

Park, Illinois.
Program Notes

Beethoven’s Six Variations in F Major, op. 34, stems from the genre that

was his first compositional vehicle for self-expression and that revealed

his genius as a keyboard improviser. As stated by Beethoven scholar

Hans Schmidt in Beethoven: Variations for Piano (translated into

English by Frederick A. Bishop): “The piano was the instrument of his

imagination, [and] the variation [form] was the welcome receptacle, the

mould.” Although Beethoven expanded and improved the larger forms in

music, such as the symphony and the sonata, it is to the variation form

that he made his greatest contribution. His handling of the form changed

its character and complexion exponentially. According to another 

Beethoven scholar, Pierre Hugh, “In [Beethoven’s model], we witness a

revolution in the relations between melody, rhythm, harmony and

coloring. The manifold combinations of these elements yield a tonal

structure in perpetual transformation.”

After presenting the original theme (Adagio) in F major,

Beethoven creates six variations, each with a separate character and a

new key. The key progression from variation to variation is downward by

thirds. The sequence is D minor (Allegro), B-flat major (Allegro ma non

troppo), G major (Allegretto), E-flat major (Tempo di menuetto), C

minor (Marcia: Allegretto), and F major (Adagio).

Dedicated to Franz Fiszt, the monumental Fantasy in C Major,

op. 17, contains some of Schumann’s most powerful and vivid music.

Upon completing the opening movement, Schumann wrote to Clara

Wieck (whom he was impatiently waiting to marry): “The first

movement of the work is perhaps the most passionate of all I have ever

composed—a deep yearning for you.” At the conclusion of that

movement, one can hear strains reminiscent of Beethoven's song cycle

An die feme Geliebte (To the Loved One Who Is Far Away). The second

movement is a march that is well known to pianists for the treacherous

leaps in its coda. The finale is a slow movement of divine and poetic

beauty.

Manuel de Falla’s Pieces espagnoles is a collection of four dance

pieces that paint musical pictures of Spanish culture as it existed in the

mind of the composer. The four pieces exude an atmosphere that is

highly poetic, sensuous, and full of sentiments. Falla started composing 

Pieces espagnoles in Spain, but left his homeland in 1907 to live in

France, where the work was completed and dedicated to Isaac Albeniz

(1860-1909). Although he considered Paris his second home, Falla left

the French capital in 1915 to return to Spain, after having gained

considerable knowledge about composing and music in general from

Debussy and Ravel.

Falla wanted to remain true to his musical roots, made deeper by

the influence of his Spanish teacher, Felipe Pedrell (1841-1922). He

embarked on a project that would create a “nationalism made universal”

movement through the employment of folk and traditional Spanish

music. Pieces espagnoles illuminates his commitment to this end. His

gallant effort earned him the distinction of being the first composer of

Spanish descent to gain international fame.

The first dance, “Aragonesa,” contains a jota, a song-and-dance

genre that is indigenous to Spain’s northern city of Aragon. The second

dance, “Cubana,” with its cross rhythms (3/4 and 6/8) and vocal

colorations, emulates a bucolic song style of Cuba known as guajira. The

folksonglike quality of the third dance, “Montanesa,” endorses its

subtitle, “Fandscape,” a reflection of the Montana, a province

sandwiched between the Basque country and the Asturias. The fourth and

final dance, “Andaluza,” has strong rhythmic accents much like those

that are highlighted in the songs and dances of southern Spain. Coupled

with these accents are guitarlike sounds imitating the art of foot

stamping, the colorful zapateado, an added attraction that makes

“Andaluza” the most popular ofthe four dances.

Written when he was forty-five years old, Bartok’s Sonata (1926)

is the last of his five sonatas for solo piano and is without an opus

number. The first four sonatas represent his earlier efforts (juvenilia) in

this genre. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and

Musicians, the third and fourth sonatas have been lost. Sonata (1926) is

Bartok’s lengthiest composition for solo piano, as well as one of his most