a masterpiece of musical endeavor, but also the most important piano

concerto to come from the pen of an American composer to date. The

work was given its premiere on 12 February 1924 at Aeolian Hall in New

York City. The American conductor extraordinaire Paul Whiteman

(1890-1967), who commissioned the work and to whom it was

dedicated, led the first performance. The score was orchestrated from

Gershwin’s original two-piano version by Ferde Grofe (1892-1972), the

American composer and pianist who was Whiteman’s principal arranger.

Not all ofthe reviews following the premiere were favorable, but several

of the critics who recognized the work’s intrinsic value voiced their 

enthusiastic approval. One New York critic wrote: “Then came a number 

on the program that established what many of us suspected before, that

George Gershwin is the most promising figure in popular music today.

Certainly his Rhapsody in Blue broke ground in a new field. He has

written, out of original and distinctive material, and using popular 

American rhythms and harmonies, a piano concerto that has strength and

structure. The rhapsody is different [from] anything you have ever heard

in popular or classical music, yet it is not ‘freak’ music. It has form,

beauty, [and] meaning.” The piano solo version of the Rhapsody was

published in 1927 by New World Music Coiporation.

Program notes by Elmer Booze

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

The Sixty-second Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2484th Concert

FREDERICK MOYER, pianist

Sunday Evening, 8 February 2004

Seven O'clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Johann Sebastian Bach

(1685-1750)

Prelude from Violin Partita No. 3

in E Major, BWV 1006

arranged for piano by Sergei Rachmaninoff

Anton Arensky

(1861-1906)

Selections from Twenty-four Characteristic Pieces,

op. 36(1894)

No. 1: Prelude in C Major 

No. 2: “The Top” (C minor)

No. 9: “Butterfly” (E major) 

No. 11: “Barcarolle” (F major) 

No. 12: Intermezzo in F Minor

No. 13: Etude in F-sharp Major

No. 14: Scherzino in F-sharp Minor

No. 15: “The Brook in the Forest”

(G major)

No. 18: “Apprehension”

(A-flat major)

No. 24: “In the Fields” (B Minor)

Intermission

Donal Fox Piano Etudes

(b. 1955) (2000-2002)

Velocity Runs

Rhythm Primitive

Toccata on Bach

Washington Premiere Performance

George Gershwin

(1898-1937)

Rhapsody in Blue

(Solo piano version 1924)

The Musician

“The playing of [Frederick] Moyer is technically strong and

extraordinarily clear and precise in articulation. He is clearly a pianist of

sensitivity and musical intelligence” (The Cleveland Plain Dealer). Such

unbridled praise is typical of the enthusiastic reviews pianist Frederick

Moyer has received during his long concert career. A full-time concert

pianist for more than twenty years, he has concertized in such far-flung

venues as Suntory Hall in Tokyo, the Sydney Opera House, and Windsor 

Castle. In addition to his 1998 and 1993 appearances at the National

Gallery, he has performed in Carnegie Recital Hall, the Berkshire

Festival on the Tanglewood estate in Massachusetts, and the Kennedy

Center. He has appeared as piano soloist with world-renowned 

orchestras, including the Cleveland, Philadelphia, Minnesota, St. Fouis,

and Dallas Symphony Orchestras. In Europe and the Far East, he has

performed with the Fondon, Netherlands Radio, Fatvian, Iceland,

Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan Philharmonic Orchestras as well as

the major orchestras of Australia.

Moyer’s eighteen recordings on the Biddulph, GM, and JRI labels

contain works by more than thirty composers and reflect his affinity for a

wide variety ofstyles. Recent recordings include the complete Estudos of

Brazilian composer Camargo Guamieri, a collection of works by Chopin,

Richard Strauss’ Enoch Arden (with speaker Benjamin Fuxon), and

David Ott’s Second Piano Concerto (commissioned by Moyer) with the

Fondon Symphony. Many other composers have written works for

Moyer, including Louis Calabro, Donal Fox, Kenneth Frazelle, Gordon

Green, David Kechley, Ned Rorem, Andersen Viana, and the 1996

Pulitzer Prize-winning composer George Walker, whose Piano Sonata

No. 4 was commissioned and recorded by Moyer in 1986.

Program Notes

The Prelude in E Major from Bach’s Violin Partita, BWV 1006, is one of

a number of works Rachmaninoff transcribed after emigrating from

Russia to America via Germany and Switzerland. Rachmaninoffs
reputation as a composer and pianist had already been firmly established

in America by his debut performance in 1909 in New York, at which he

played both his second and third piano concertos. However, he was well

aware that he had to transform himself into a superstar virtuoso in order 

to make a profitable living as a pianist. To supplement his solo

repertoire, Rachmaninoff turned to the art of the transcription, and his

experiments in this genre proved to be paragons of the art. His nine

transcriptions for solo piano are bold, brilliant, and full of virtuosity. At

the same time they deftly unleash the spectrum of human emotions. The

effective performance of these transcriptions as well as many of

Rachmaninoffs other compositions requires an Olympic technique. The

Bach Prelude, as he transcribed it, remains close to the original version,

using the high register of the keyboard to imitate the violin in nonstop

perpetual motion, and it retains the striking polyphonic clarity that is a

hallmark of Bach’s genius.

Anton Arensky composed Twenty-four Characteristic Pieces, op.

36, in 1894 during a recuperative sojourn in the Caucasus, a region

between the Black and Caspian Seas on the dividing line between Europe

and Asia. Although they are not designated as such, these twenty-four 

pieces are believed to have been inspired by Johann Sebastian Bach’s

preludes and fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier, particularly in

their key relationships, beginning in C major and ending twenty-four 

preludes later in the chromatically distant key of B minor. Arensky’s

suggestive subtitles add an element of allure and complement the use of

the word “characteristic” in the title of the set. In the liner notes

accompanying the first recording of the complete Characteristic Pieces

(by pianist Anatoly Sheludiakov, [Moscow, 2002]), a former pupil of

Arensky, Alexander Goldenweiser (1875-1961), is quoted: “It is my

opinion that in this large-scale work Arensky placed all of his intellect,

like a dictionary defining his poetics and aesthetic.” Frederick Moyer has

selected ten of the twenty-four pieces for this program for their musical

and technical challenge as well as their lasting expressive qualities.

Internationally acclaimed as a composer, pianist, and improviser 

in both the jazz and classical fields, Donal Fox has garnered numerous

awards, among which are a 1997 Guggenheim Fellowship in music

composition and a 1998 Fellowship from the Boglaisco Foundation

(Italy). Two of his most recent commissions have come from the

Westdeutscher Rundfunk Koln and the Paris New Music Review. During

the 1991-1992 concert season, Fox served as composer-in-residence 

with the St. Louis Symphony under then music director Leonard Slatkin.

He maintains an active schedule as a concert pianist, performing with the

Richmond Symphony and playing solo recitals at Merkin Concert Hall in

New York City. Donal Fox has made several appearances on National

Public Radio and public television programs, such as JazzSets, hosted by

Branford Marsalis; The Connection, with BBC host Judy Swallow; and

Say, Brother. He has recorded as composer and pianist for New World

Records, Evidence Records, Music & Arts, Yamaha’s Original Series,

and Wergo Records.

Fox has provided his Piano Etudes, written on a Guggenheim

Foundation commission, with the following commentary: “The three

etudes {Etudes de concert) composed for Frederick Moyer (a complete

set will be eventually written for him)-Velocity Runs, Rhythm Primitive,

and Toccata on Bach-are Washington, D.C., premieres. Each etude, by

definition, is a study that explores a different technical or musical

problem for the pianist. Velocity Runs, as indicated by its title, deals with

colorful and powerful fleeting scalar runs up and down the keyboard that

eventually thin out into a hammering two-handed trill. Rhythm Primitive

explores screaming, unrelenting chords, and hairpin rhythmical attacks.

Toccata on Bach is a jazzy essay based on the last movement ofthe Bach

Toccata in E Minor, BWV 914. The toccata, like the etudes, requires

brilliant technical execution. Almost all ofthe notes for Toccata on Bach

are derived in some way or another-transposition, augmentation,

inversion, etc.-from the Bach work.” These contrapuntal devices are also

known as devices offigure treatment.

When Gershwin completed his Rhapsody in Blue for piano and

jazz band in 1923, he had no inkling of the extent to which it would

influence the subsequent development of American music. It is not only