distinct personality as a composer, as diminished octaves are added to

the harmonic palette and the violin is accompanied by unadorned parallel

fifths. In the second movement, suggestively titled Blues, Ravel imitates

the style of a jazz saxophonist in the slithering melody he assigns to the

violin and adds bitonality to the harmonic palette in the piano

accompaniment. Ravel’s concept of perpetual motion, as presented in the

final movement, places great demands on the violinist, who is obliged to

produce 179 consecutive measures of twelve sixteenth notes each,

without interruption. The premiere performance of this sonata featured

Ravel at the piano and the renowned Romanian violinist-composer, 

Georges Enesco, on the violin.

Program notes by Stephen Ackert

The use ofcameras or recording equipment during

the performance is not allowed. Please he sure that cell

phones, pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off.

For the convenience of concert goers

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

The Sixty-second Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2493d Concert

DMITRY SITKOVETSKY, violinist

BELLA DAVIDOVICH, pianist

Sunday Evening, 18 April 2004

Seven O’clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
Program

Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata No. 1 for Violin and Piano in D Major

(1770-1827) Op. 12, No. 1 (1797)

Allegro con brio

Tema con variazioni: Andante con moto

Rondo: Allegro

Edvard Grieg Sonata No. 3 for Violin and Piano in C Minor

(1843-1907) Op. 45 (1886-1887)

Allegro molto ed appassionato 

Espressivo alia romanza

Allegro animato

Intermission

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Sonata for Violin and Piano in F Major

(1756-1791) K. 377 (1781)

Allegro

Tema con variazioni: Andante 

Tempo di minuetto

Maurice Ravel Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Major

(1875-1937) (1927)

Allegretto 

Blues: Moderato

Perpetuum mobile: Allegro

The Musicians

Dmitry Sitkovetsky has built a flourishing career as both a violinist and

a conductor. He has appeared as soloist with the world’s finest

orchestras, including the Berlin Philharmonic, Leipzig Gewandhaus,

London Symphony, Philharmonia, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York

Philharmonic, and Cleveland orchestras. World-renowned festivals at

which he has performed include the Salzburg, Lucerne, Edinburgh,

Ravinia, and Mostly Mozart festivals. Sitkovetsky has recorded all the

major violin concertos and has received special acclaim for his

recordings of concertos by Bartok, Shostakovich, and Prokofiev. With

the Academy of Saint Martin in the Fields, he has recorded concertos of

Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, Sibelius, and Tchaikovsky.

Sitkovetsky is the principal conductor and artistic advisor of the

Ulster Orchestra, with which he has toured the United Kingdom,

continental Europe, and Hong Kong. He is also the founding director of

the New European Strings (NES) Chamber Orchestra, an ensemble

consisting of distinguished string players from both the eastern and

western hemispheres. Among the critically acclaimed projects

undertaken by the NES Chamber Orchestra is the recording of a

transcription by Sitkovetsky of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg

Variations. Sitkovetsky has been guest conductor of the Academy of

Saint Martin in the Fields, the BBC Philharmonic, the Rundfunk

Orchestras of Leipzig and Hannover, the Academia di Santa Caecilia,

and the Los Angeles and Saint Paul Chamber orchestras, among many

others.

The list of orchestras with which Bella Davidovich has appeared

as concerto soloist over the years is synonymous with the list of the

world’s greatest ensembles. Likewise, the list of conductors with whom

she has collaborated resembles a who’s who of renowned musicians.

Eugene Ormandy, Andrew Davis, Herbert Blomstedt, Klaus Tenstedt,

Riccardo Muti, Leonard Slatkin, Christoph Eschenbach, Mstislav

Rostropovich, Michael Tilson Thomas, Kirill Kondrashin, and Kurt

Masur make up only the first portion of the long list. Davidovich is a
favorite and frequent performer at such prestigious music festivals as La

Roc d’Antherron, Schleswig-Holstein, Piano Festival Ruhr, and Verbier,

and she has served on the juries at the world-renowned Queen Elisabeth

of Belgium and Chopin International Competitions.

In 1988 Bella Davidovich was the first expatriate musician to

receive an official invitation from the Soviet government to return to her

native land for concerts, all of which were sold out. She was born to a

family of musicians in Baku, and her extraordinary talent was already

apparent by the time she was six years old. She entered the Moscow

Conservatory at age eighteen. One of two first-prize winners of the 1949

Chopin Competition in Warsaw, she was soon thereafter named a

“Deserving Artist of the Soviet Union.” She was one of very few women

appointed to professorships at the Moscow Conservatory. In spite of her

success in the Soviet Union, she decided to emigrate to the United States

in 1978. Her October 1979 debut at Carnegie Hall drew headlines and

rave reviews and was the beginning of an equally illustrious career in the

West. She was appointed to the faculty of the Juilliard School of Music

in 1985 and continues to teach there. Bella Davidovich’s recordings can

be heard on the Orfeo, Novalis, Delos, Gutingi, and Supraphon labels.

Program Notes

Although Beethoven’s first violin sonata {Op. 12, No. 1) does not display

the sophistication of his later works for this genre, it is far from

elementary, presenting an effectively bright and sunny musical picture.

The first movement begins with a unison passage for both instruments,

from which the violin breaks away to introduce the first theme.

Beethoven establishes an equitable and intriguing dialogue between the

violin and the piano that is enhanced by the transformation of the

material to the minor mode in the development section. The second

movement {Andante con moto) consists of a theme and variations in

which the two-part nature of the theme leads to two-part variations, each

offering a separate treatment for each half of the theme. The one

exception is the third variation, which is a single unit in minor mode.

Beethoven’s sense of humor manifests itself in the third and final

movement, where the beat occasionally shifts away from the natural

accents of the 6/8 meter and the tonality abruptly changes from D major

to F major.

All the works Edvard Grieg composed after 1864 reflect his

determination to make use in his music of either folk melodies of his

native Norway, or of rhythms and turns of melody that are typical of that

tradition. In the case of the Sonata for Violin and Piano in C Minor,

Grieg turns to the hailing, a folk dance in duple meter, in the second

movement. The movement begins with a charming, simple melody,

rendered first by the piano and then by the violin, after which the

contrasting section imitates the folk dance. The first and final

movements are broadly dramatic and animated, and the vigor of the

finale is enhanced by liberal use of offbeat rhythms.

Mozart was unhappy as chapel concertmaster to Archbishop

Colloredo of Salzburg almost from the day he received the position in

1773. A series of conflicts with his employer led to Mozart’s dismissal in

1781, and the Sonata for Violin and Piano in F Major, written that same

year, seems initially to reflect the composer’s frustrated mental state.

The first movement blusters with choppy musical phrases that appear to

communicate an air of indifference. The second movement features a set

of six variations based on a theme in the murky key of D minor, but a

reprieve appears with variation five as it switches to the major mode, and

variation six, which is a lilting siciliana. The joviality and vivaciousness

of the final rondo {Tempo di minuetto) completely disperse any doubts

that may have been planted by the sonata’s initial overcast mood.

Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Piano in G Major is the only work

in this genre for which he sought publication. (His only other attempt, a

single-movement sonata written in 1897 when he was a student at the

Paris Conservatory, was forgotten until it was unearthed and published in

1975 by Editions Salabert.) Carefully fashioned to show off the violin

and the piano equally, the G Major Sonata begins with a graceful,

relaxed movement (Allegretto) that is classical in form but romantic in

its sensual melodic lines. The second subject reveals more of Ravel’s