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performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell phones,

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the Garden Cafe remains open for light refreshments

until 6:00 pm on Sundays.

Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, dc

www.nga.gov

Concerts are made possible in part through the generosity of donors

to the National Gallery ofArt through The Circle. Reserved seating is

available in recognition oftheir support. Please contact the development 

office at (202) 842-6450 or circlo@nga.gov for more information.

The Seventy-second Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,982nd Concert

Peter Vinograde, pianist

National Gallery ofArt Vocal Ensemble

March 2, 2014

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

English Suits no. 4 in F Major, BWV 809 (1715-1720)

Prelude 

Allemande 

Courante 

Sarabande

Minuets 1 and 2

Gigue

English Suite no. 5 in E Minor, BWV 810 (1715-1720)

Prelude 

Allemande 

Courante

Sarabande 

Passepieds 1 and 2

Gigue

Brief Pause

English Suite no. 6 in D Minor, BWV 811 (1715-1720)

Prelude 

Allemande 

Courante

Sarabande and Double

Gavottes 1 and 2

Gigue

INTERMISSION

Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227 (c. 1723)

Chorale: Jesu, meine Freude

Chorus: Es ist nun Nichts verdammliches

Chorale: Unter deinem Schirmen

Trio: Denn das Gesetz

Chorus: Trotz dem alien Drachen

Fugue: Ihr aber seid nichtjleischlich

Chorale: Weg mit alien Schatzen

Trio: So aber Christus in euch ist

Chorale prelude: Gute Nacht, 0 Wesen

Chorus: So nun der Geist

Chorale: Weicht, ihr Trauergeister
The Musicians

PETER VINOGRADE

An outstanding interpreter of}. S. Bach and contemporary composers,

pianist Peter Vinograde regularly tours Asia, Canada, and the United States. 

Earlier this season he performed the world premiere of Michael Matthews’

De Reflejo a Vulgar for piano and tape (2007), and Peter Mennin’s rarely

performed Piano Sonata (1963). Other engagements this season include

concerts in San Francisco, Santa Fe, and Singapore as well as a tour of

China. Often involved in the presentation of new music, he has played 

premiere performances of Hal Campbell’s Piano Concerto (1997), Nicholas 

Flagello’s Concerto no. 3 (1962), and Mark Zuckerman’s On the Edges (1996).

As a chamber musician, Vinograde has appeared at the Bard, Bargemusic,

Caramoor, and WolfTrap festivals. With violinist Midori, he has toured

throughout Asia and performed at the Cape Cod and Mostly Mozart festivals.

In conjunction with his Bach for Pianists class at the Manhattan School 

of Music, Vinograde presents the Goldberg Variations in lecture/recital form

at conservatories and universities throughout the country. His numerous

distinctions began with first prize in the 1971J. S. Bach International Competition in Washington, DC, followed by his New York debut at Carnegie

Recital Hall and a National Endowment for the Arts-sponsored recital at 

Fincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall. Featured on npr’s Performance Today and

cbc-tv’s The Journal, Vinograde has numerous recordings to his credit on

the Albany, cbc, Finfair (Decca) and Phoenix labels. In addition to his

classes at the Manhattan School of Music, Vinograde teaches at Fehman

College ofthe City University of New York.

Peter Vinograde dedicates this concert to the memory of his teacher,

Zenon Fishbein, who died last year. A strong influence on Vinograde as he

studied the Bach suites at the Manhattan School, Fishbein is remembered by

all his students for his musical acuity, sense ofhumor, and constant support.

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NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART VOCAL ENSEMBLE

Now in its tenth season under the leadership ofits artistic director, Rosa

Famoreaux, the National Gallery ofArt Vocal Ensemble has presented

numerous special programs in conjunction with Gallery exhibitions, including seventeenth-century Dutch music in honor ofJan Elevens: A Dutch Master

Rediscovered (2008) and Pride ofPlace: Dutch Cityscapes ofthe Golden Age

(2009); music by Faure and other French composers for the gala reopening

ofthe Nineteenth-century French Galleries (2011); and music by Arthur Sullivan

and other nineteenth-century British composers in honor of Pre-Raphaelites:

Victorian Art and Design, 1848-igoo (2013). Members ofthe Vocal Ensemble

performing in tonight’s concert are sopranos Rosa Famoreaux and Rebecca

Petretta, altos Barbara Hollinshead and Roger Isaacs, tenors Matthew Heil

and Matthew Smith, and basses Steven Combs and Brandon Straub.

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Program Notes

Members ofthe audience who attended the concert earlier this afternoon at

the Phillips Collection will have heard the first three ofJohann Sebastian 

Bach’s English Suites, as interpreted by harpsichordist Anthony Newman.

The pairing ofthat concert and tonight’s National Gallery concert is the third

such collaboration between Phillips Collection music director Caroline

Mousset and the head ofthe Gallery’s music department, Stephen Ackert.

The “completion” ofthe concert with a performance ofthe Bach motet Jesu,

meine Freude comes at the instigation of Mousset, who noted that the suites 

are systematically organized in stepwise descending keys: A major, A minor, 

G minor, F major, E minor, D minor. When spelled out as a melody, that

sequence (a, a, g, f, e, d) forms the first phrase ofthe chorale Jesu, meine

Freude. It could have been an unconscious act on Bach’s part, but this tune

by Johann Criiger (1598-1662), one ofthe all-time greatest hymn composers, is a melody that Bach sang frequently and used in compositions on a

number of occasions.

Bach intended these six keyboard suites to be published as a set, the 

third ofthree such sets that he produced, but he is not responsible for the 

monikers that were subsequently added by publishers—“English Suites,”

“French Suites,” and “Partitas.” The basic style for all baroque suites was

French, and the standard contents were a set offour dances—allemande, 

courante, sarabande, and gigue—often preceded by a prelude. Bach’s suites 

appear to have been inspired by six harpsichord suites by French composer

Charles Dieupart (1667-1740), which Bach copied for his own library

between 1709 and 1714. He began work on his own suites in 1715 and arranged to have the completed sets performed in 1725 by one of his students

in Leipzig.

All six ofthe “English” suites include the prelude and standard four 

dances as well as a matched pair of popular dance movements, or galanteries,

between the sarabande and gigue. The first and second suites have bourrees,

the third and sixth feature gavottes, the fourth has a pair ofminuets, and 

two passepieds round out the Fifth Suite. As Bach’s first large-scale experiment in combining imitative counterpoint with well-established idioms, the

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“English” suites demonstrate the composer’s expressiveness, inventiveness, 

and virtuosity in the early stages of his quest toward perfection.

Each ofthe three suites included in tonight’s program shows unique compositional methods as well as Bach’s mastery ofborrowing and transforming

other composers’ material. The Fourth Suite opens with a solo entrance of

the treble voice, similar to Vivaldi’s Concerto, op. 3, no. 3, which Bach also

transcribed for solo keyboard instrument. In this suite, Bach foreshadows his

Partita in G Major and revisits material from his Fifth Brandenburg Concerto.

The Prelude ofthe Fifth Suite contains the only da capo fugue in all of

Bach’s output for the keyboard. This suite also features densely contrapuntal

sections in the Allemande, followed by a lively Courante and a graceful

Sarabande. As a whole, it is a coherent composition with perfect balance of

tension and release.

The final suite, in D minor, is the largest and perhaps the most ambitious, including more technically challenging passages for the keyboardist.

The cumulative power and narrative drive established by the first two suites 

is sustained throughout this one and culminates in the middle ofthe final

gigue, when Bach inserts his musical signature— B-flat, A, C, B-natural (H

in German)—in fiercely quavering trills.

To Bach’s contemporaries, “motet” meant a simple vocal work without

independent instrumental parts. During his tenure in Leipzig (1723-1750),

he composed six chorale motets. Intended for Sunday services and for

amateur singers, the motets of Bach’s contemporaries do not present great

challenges to the singers. His own motets, however, are quite demanding,

and it is unlikely that he used them in church services. Most ofthem were

composed in what was then the “modern” style, including instrumental

continuo, obligato instrumental passages, and solo sections for more

operatic voices. It is thought that Jesu, meine Freude was composed for the 

funeral ofthe wife of a high official who died shortly after his arrival in

Leipzig (funerals had separate—and usually more generous—budgets for

singers), but this is based on purely circumstantial evidence.

Program notes by Danielle DeSwert Hahn, music program specialist, National

Gallery ofArt

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