Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, dc

Mailing address

2000B South Club Drive

Landover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

For events at the Library ofCongress,

advance reservation oftickets is recommended.

Tickets are distributed by Ticketmaster (202-397-SEAT).

The tickets are free, but there is a service charge

for the reservation.

www.loc.gov/concerts

cover: Carl Joseph Begas, Felix Mendelssohn

Bartholdy, 1821, Private Collection

Mendelssohn on the Mall

January 11-February 27, 2009

Celebrating the 200th Anniversary of

the birth of Felix Mendelssohn

(February 3,1809-November 4,1847)

Presented by the Library ofCongress,

the National Academy of Sciences, and the

National Gallery ofArt under the gracious patronage

of His Excellency Dr. Klaus Scharioth, Ambassador

of Germany to the United States

Admission isfree
Mendelssohn on the Mall

January li-February 27, 2009

Concerts and Events

JANUARY

11 Ma’alot Wind Quintet

Mendelssohn: A Midsummer

Night’s Dream, transcribed for

wind quintet; music by Ligeti,

Barber, and Piazzolla

Preceded at 6:00 pm by a

preconcert lecture: Mendelssohn

and the Visual Arts

SUNDAY, 6:30 PM

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

18 Weiss-Kaplan-Newman Trio

with guest artists Amadi Hummings

and Sel Kardan, violas, and Kurt

Muroki, bass

Mendelssohn: Sextetfor Piano

and Strings, op. 87; music by Sheng

and Smetana

Sunday, 3:00 PM

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

18 National Gallery Orchestra,

Kenneth Slowik, guest conductor

Mendelssohn: “Italian” Symphony;

Schubert: Symphony in C Major

(“Great”)

Sunday, 6:30 PM

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

25 Fine Arts Quartet

Mendelssohn: Quartets, opp. 12

and 44/1

Sunday, 6:30 PM

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

The calendar of concerts and events

continues on the inside back cover.

The Sixty-seventh Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell

and F. Lammot Belin Concerts

National Gallery ofArt 

2,705th Concert

February 8, 2009

Josef Feigelson, cellist

Peep Lassmann, pianist

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Complete Worksfor Cello and Piano

Variations concertantes in D Majorfor Cello and Piano, op. 17 (1829)

Sonata no. lfor Cello and Piano in B-flat Major, op. 45 (1838)

Allegro vivace

Andante

Allegro assai

INTERMISSION

Song without Words in D Majorfor Cello and Piano, op. 109 (1845)

Sonata no. 2 for Cello and Piano in D Major, op. 58 (1843)

Allegro assai vivace

Allegretto scherzando

Adagio

Molto allegro e vivace

3
The Musicians

JOSEF FEIGELSON

Latvian-born cellist Josef (Yosif) Feigelson’s solo career has spanned more

than three decades. He has been praised for his singing tone, effortless

technique, and sincere, enlightening interpretations. As a child, Feigelson

was virtually surrounded by music—his father was an opera tenor and his

mother an orchestra violinist. He began playing the cello at the age ofsix,

studying at the Darzin Music School in Riga. After winning first prize at the

Concertino Prague International Competition in 1970, he caught the attention ofthe legendary cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and consequently became

his pupil at the Moscow Conservatory. After Rostropovich’s departure from

the Soviet Union, Feigelson continued his studies with Natalia Gutman.

A prizewinner in the Tchaikovsky (1974) and Johann Sebastian Bach (1976)

international competitions, he toured throughout the former Soviet Union

and Eastern Europe, appearing in Dvorak Hall in Prague, the Great Hall of

the Moscow Conservatory, and the Musikbienale in Berlin.

Feigelson became an American citizen in 1987 and made his widely 

publicized New York orchestral debut in 1988, when he stepped in on short

notice for ailing violinist Nathan Milstein with the New York Chamber

Symphony. That year also marked his National Gallery recital debut. He has

performed in virtually every major concert hall in New York City as well as

Symphony Hall in Chicago and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In addition to other solo performances across Europe, Israel, and

the United Kingdom, he has been a soloist with the Brooklyn Philharmonic

Orchestra, the Charleston Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphonietta,

and the Detroit, Knoxville, Pittsburgh, Richmond, and Seattle symphony

orchestras. In Europe, Feigelson has taken part in the Bach Festival in Madeira,

Portugal; the Handelfestspiele and Schleswig-Holstein Festivals in Germany;

the Moulin dAnde Festival in France; Musiktreffen in St. Moritz, Switzerland; and the Tuscany Festival in Italy.

4

As a chamber musician, Feigelson has collaborated with pianists Bella

Davidovich and Vladimir Feltsman, soprano Barbara Hendrix, violinist Oleh 

Krysa, and violist Yuri Bashmet. He has appeared with conductors Moshe 

Atzmon, Lukas Foss, Lawrence Foster, Neeme Jarvi, Gennady Rozhdestvensky,

Gerard Schwarz, Andre Raphael Smith, and David Stahl.

The recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant, Feigelson has appeared

on television and radio, including Public Radio International’s “Performance

Today.” His 1996 performance ofthe Dvorak Cello Concerto with the Detroit 

Symphony under Neeme Jarvi was recorded for Eurobroadcast and heard on

radio stations around the world. His CD recordings have been released on

the Panton, Essay, Melodiya, and Olympia labels. Feigelson has given master

classes for string players in many venues, including the Aspen music Festival,

the Chautauqua Institution, the Detroit Civic Orchestra, and Rutgers University.

He is also an artistic director oftwo festivals of concerts and master classes:

the Kindred Spirits Programs in Milford, Pennsylvania, and the Preludes of

Pont-Aven in France.

PEEP IASSMANN

Pianist Peep Lassmann has a distinguished career, not only in his native

Estonia but also in Asia, Canada, Cuba, Mexico, the United States, and

western Europe. Born in Tallinn, Lassmann studied piano at the Estonian

Music Academy under Heljo Sepa and at the Moscow Conservatory with the

renowned pianist Emil Gilels. While in Moscow, he won a silver medal at the

All-Soviet Union Piano Competition. After graduation he was immediately

engaged in extensive concert tours, both as a recitalist and as a collaborative 

pianist. After the re-establishment ofEstonia’s independence, Lassmann was

asked to lead the Estonian Music Academy. He became its director in 1991.

Today, Lassmann continues to collaborate with some ofthe world’s

leading musicians, including cellists Josef Feigelson and Raphael Wallfish, 

singer Yolande Hernandez, and violinists Aaron Rosand and Marianne

Boettcher. He has also recorded a solo album of Estonian piano music as

5
well as the Piano Preludes ofthe renowned Estonian composer Arvo Part.

Lassmann’s repertoire is extremely varied and includes music from different

periods and styles. He was the first pianist in Estonia to perform the grand

cycles Vingt regards sur I’enfant Jesus (Twenty Reflections on the Infant Jesus)

and Catalogue d’Oiseaux (Catalogue of Birds) by Olivier Messiaen (1908-

1992). Lassmann’s affinity for the latter work stems in part from the fact that

he is a lover of nature and an avid bird-watcher. He serves on the board of

the Estonian Ornithological Society.

6

Program Notes

Felix Mendelssohn was born on February 3,1809. With “Mendelssohn on

the Mall,” the Library ofCongress, the National Academy of Sciences, and 

the National Gallery ofArt join musical presenters around the world in

celebrating the bicentennial ofthe birth of a composer whose works have

become essential to the Western canon. Art historians and cultural historians alike are fascinated by Mendelssohn because he was a “Renaissance 

man” who developed skills in many areas to a highly sophisticated level,

including drawing and painting, sports, and writing. He was lionized in his

own time as a composer, conductor, and performer, and the world mourned

his untimely death in 1847 at age thirty-eight.

Mendelssohn composed his first work for cello and piano, the Variations

concertantes, op. 17, for his brother, Paul, who was a gifted cellist. A songlike

theme, which highlights both the piano and cello parts, is followed by eight 

variations. The first two shine a spotlight on the piano, while the ensuing

variations turn the emphasis from one instrument to the other, changing

color and displaying virtuosity in both performers. Also composed for his

brother Paul, the Sonata in B-Jlat Majorfor Cello and Piano, op. 45, was

written in Leipzig in 1838, almost a decade after the Variations concertantes.

In this sonata, Mendelssohn shows his gift for cantabile melodic writing, 

giving an equal assignment to each partner and providing long, singing

phrases for the cello.

Written in 1845, the Song without Words, op. 109, was the last piece

Mendelssohn wrote for this pair ofinstruments. It was dedicated to Lisa

Cristiani (1827-1853), one of very few women cellists ofthe time. Having 

composed eight volumes of Songs without Words for piano solo, the composer was particularly adept at writing in this abbreviated form. This is the 

only such piece that he composed specifically for two instruments (several

ofthe Songs without Words for piano were transcribed by others for various

instruments). Here the cello is the “singer” and the piano provides beautiful

harmonious accompaniment.

7
The Sonata in D Major, op. 58, was written five years after the B-Jlat Major

Sonata, and the former work greatly overshadows the latter in subsequent

popularity. The first movement ofthe later sonata (Allegro assai vivace)

contains few surprises for those already familiar with the earlier one and

Mendelssohn’s sonatas for other instruments, but each ofthe subsequent

movements has an aspect that makes it unique. In the second movement

(.Allegretto scherzando), the composer plays at first with the cello’s potential

as a plucked string instrument, sometimes producing sonorities that can be

likened to chirps, but eventually returns to the instrument’s true forte, lyric

melody played with full bow strokes. In the third movement (Adagio), both

the cello and the piano take turns in the role of a bold declaimer of a fullblown chorale in the romantic style. In the final movement (Molto allegro e

vivace), some twenty measures pass in which the tonality is indeterminate—

a deliberate move on the composer’s part that makes the eventual entry ofthe

theme in the tonic key all the more dramatic. The movement continues with

an unrelenting forward motion akin to the whir of a spinning wheel.

Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

University ofAkron Concert Choir

Samuel Gordon, conductor

With Rosa Lamoreaux, soprano, Steven Combs, baritone,

and members ofthe National Gallery Orchestra

Music by Mendelssohn

February 15, 2009

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

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

tlie West Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

9
FEBRUARY

Exhibition ofMendelssohn manuscripts, letters, watercolors, and the

Mendelssohn family scrapbook

THROUGHOUT FEBRUARY 2OO9

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

i Ulrich Urban, pianist

Mendelssohn: Fantasies and Caprices,

op. 16; selected Songs without Words;

Variations serieuses, op. 54

SUNDAY, 6:30 PM

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

6 Cypress Quartet

Mendelssohn: Quartet, op. 13;

music by Beethoven and Puts

FRIDAY, 8:00 PM

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

8 Josef Feigelson, cellist

Peep Lassmann, pianist

Mendelssohn’s complete works

for cello and piano

Sunday, 6:30 PM

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

10 Mira Trio

Hensel: Piano Trio in D minor, op. 11;

Mendelssohn and Hensel: Songs

without Words; Mendelssohn:

Piano Trio no. 2 in C minor, op. 66

Preceded at 6:13 pm by a

preconcert lecture by Susan 

Clermont, Music Division, Library

ofCongress

FRIDAY, 8:00 PM

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

13 Atrium Quartet

Mendelssohn: Quartet, op. 80;

music by Shostakovich and Borodin

FRIDAY, 8:00 PM

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

15 University ofAkron Concert Choir,

Samuel Gordon, conductor

Mendelssohn: Wie der Hirsch schreit,

op. 42; Chorale Cantata: O Haupt

voll Blut und Wunden; hymn: Hor

mein bitten

SUNDAY, 6:30 PM

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

18 Trio con Brio Copenhagen

Mendelssohn: Piano Quartet in

B Minor, op. 3; Beethoven:

“Archduke” Trio

WEDNESDAY, 8:00 PM

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

19 Lecture by R. Larry Todd,

Duke University

Reflections on the Mendelssohn

Bicentenary

THURSDAY, 7:00 PM

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

22 Mendelssohn Piano Trio

Mendelssohn: Piano Trio in D Minor,

op. 49; music by Beethoven

Sunday, 6:30 PM

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART

27 Mendelssohn Choir ofPittsburgh,

Betsy Burleigh, director

Mendelssohn: Psalm 55; Sechs

Spruche, op. 79; music by Handel, 

Haydn, and Mozart

Friday, 8:00 PM

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS