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

National Academy of Sciences

Auditorium Entrance: 2100 c Street, nw

Admission free with photo id

Additional information at 202-334-2436

www.nasonline.org/arts

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 11-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 Edwin Kaplan

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 Sixty-seventh Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell

and F. Lammot Belin 

National Gallery ofArt

2,703rd Concert

January 25, 2009

Fine Arts Quartet

Ralph Evans and Efim Boico, violins

Chauncey Patterson, viola

Wolfgang Laufer, cello

Works by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Capriccio in E Minor, op. 81, no. 3 (1843)

Scherzo in A Minor, op. 81, no. 2 (1827)

String Quartet no. 1 in E-flat Major, op. 12 (1829)

Adagio non troppo; allegro non tardante

Canzonetta: Allegretto

Andante espressivo

Molto allegro e vivace

INTERMISSION

String Quartet in D Major, op. 44, no. 1 (1838)

Molto allegro vivace

Menuetto: Un poco allegretto

Andante espressivo ma con moto

Presto con brio
The Musicians

The Fine Arts Quartet is one ofthe most distinguished ensembles in chamber

music today. Founded in Chicago in 1946, and based at the University of

Wisconsin-Milwaukee since 1963, the Quartet is one ofthe elite few to have 

recorded and toured internationally for over half a century. Three ofthe Fine 

Arts Quartet’s current artists, Ralph Evans, Efim Boico, and Wolfgang Laufer,

have been performing together for twenty-five years. Chauncey Patterson

has joined them as interim violist for the 2008-2009 season, replacing

Yuri Gandelsman, who recently retired.

Each season, the Fine Arts Quartet tours worldwide, with concerts in

such musical centers as Beijing, Berlin, Istanbul, Jerusalem, London, Madrid, 

Mexico City, Moscow, New York, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, and Toronto. The

ensemble also continues to record actively, with over sixty-five works recorded

since 1985. The latest releases include not only the early string quartets of

Beethoven but also the complete string quartets of Dohnanyi, Mendelssohn,

and Schumann. The Fine Arts Quartet has recorded quartets by American

composers Antheil, Evans, Glass, and Herrmann, as well as chamber music

by Glazunov, which Musicweb International named one ofthe “best recordings

of the year 2007.” The Fine Arts Quartet's recordings have frequently been

selected for Grammy© nominations and have been named “Critics’ Choice’’

by The American Record Guide. The ensemble has also received the Award for 

Adventurous Programming, given jointly by Chamber Music America and

the American Society ofComposers, Authors, and Publishers (ascap).

The members ofthe Quartet have helped form and nurture many of

today’s leading young ensembles and have been guest professors at the

conservatories of Paris and Lyon as well as the summer music schools of

Yale University and Indiana University. They also appear regularly as jury

members at the Bordeaux, Evian, and Shostakovich International Competitions. More information about the Fine Arts Quartet may be found at

www.fmeartsquartet.org. The ensemble appears at the National Gallery by

arrangement with Jonathan Wentworth Associates, Ltd., of Mount Vernon,

New York.

3

Felix Mendelssohn was born on February1 3,1809. With “Mendelssohn 011

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 of the 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.

Tire group offour pieces that is today identified as Mendelssohn's String

Quartet no. 7, op. 81, contains two movements that tire composer wrote shortly 

before his death, with the intent of completing a seventh string quartet. The

other two “movements” are pieces that he had written earlier, which were

incorporated posthumously into a four-movement work by the publisher

Breitkopf and Hartel to create one more Mendelssohn quartet for the market.

The Capriccio in E Minor, which was completed in 1843, consists of a slow

introduction and a fugato. The Scherzo in A Minor was completed in 1827,

and is thus a work of Mendelssohn’s prodigious youth. It has all the sprightly

charm ofthe Scherzo that is associated with Puck in A Midsummer Night’s

Dream, with the added attraction of a surprise coda.

Turning from Mendelssohn’s last work for string quartet to his first, the

Fine Arts Quartet continues with the String Quartet in E-flat Major, op. 12. In

1823, at age fourteen, the young composer turned for inspiration and example

to a quartet that his hero, Beethoven, had written in 1809—the Quartet in

E-flat Major, op. 74 (“Harp”). Like its model, Mendelssohn’s quartet begins

with a broad introduction that contains the motif—a rising diminished

fifth—that will serve as a building block for the rest of tire first movement.

The second movement (Canzonetta: Allegretto), is the quick and light movement ofthe quartet; yet it reveals an unexpected reserve on the part ofthe

teenage composer, wrho had already composed much more skittish fast

Program Notes

4
movements, and shows him sensitive to the shade of difference between a

canzonetta and a scherzo. In the slow movement (Andante espressivo), the first

violin carries the musical lead. The energetic finale (Molto allegro e vivace)

follows directly on the heels ofthe Andante, as though the young athlete/

composer—whose letters tell of his love ofmountain climbing and other 

athletic activities—could hardly wait to get back onto the track for another

good run. Not forgetting the formal lessons to be learned from the best 

quartets he had studied, Mendelssohn incorporates portions ofthe first

movement into the last.

In 1837-1838, Mendelssohn found himselfwriting three quartets, all of

which were published together as opus 44. Two ofthem were written at the 

behest ofthe violinist Ferdinand David (1810-1873), a fellow Berliner whose

fine playing also inspired Mendelssohn to compose his one and only violin

concerto. The Quartet in D Major, op. 44, no.i, begins robustly, with a measured tremolando that portends a piece of chamber music that that has orchestral aspirations. But Mendelssohn does not indulge in any ofthe other

devices that he sometimes uses when writing for orchestra, such as sweeping arpeggios or double stops. Instead, he uses imitation, long melodic lines,

lush harmonies, and canon to add special interest and gravitas to this 

quartet and carry it to a level higher than that of his earlier quartets. The

second movement (Menuetto: Un poco allegretto) marks the only instance

where the composer limited himselfto the classical minuet, where he could

have used the more romantic canzonetta or energetic scherzo. In the fiery

final movement (Presto con brio) the irrepressible and vibrant young man

(now at the ripe old age oftwenty-nine) comes once again to the fore.

Program notes by Stephen Ackert

For the convenience of concertgoers the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:00 pm.

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 ofthe West Building after 6:30 pm is not

permitted.

5

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 6:15 pm by a

preconcert presentation 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

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

with guest artist James Dunham,

viola

Mendelssohn: Piano Quartet in

B Minor, op. 3; Beethoven:

“Archduke” Trio

Preceded at 6:15 pm by a preconcert 

presentation by R. Larry Todd,

Duke University

WEDNESDAY, 8:00 PM

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

19 Presentation by R. Larry Todd,

Duke University

Rejections 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 of Pittsburgh,

Betsy Burleigh, director

Mendelssohn: Psalm 55; Sechs

Spruche, op. 79; music by Handel, 

Haydn, Herbert, and Rindfleisch

FRIDAY, 8:00 PM

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

FRIDAY, 8:00 PM

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS