May

25 Klaus Hellwig, pianist Beethoven: Sonata, Op. 14/2

Sonata, Op. 21

Schumann: Davidsbiindlertdnze,

Op. 6

June

1 National Gallery

Orchestra

George Manos, conductor

Mendelssohn: Symphony No. 3

Ravel: Le tombeau de Couperin

Ravel: Bolero

8 Ilya Gringolts, violinist Partitas and sonatas for

unaccompanied violin by J. S. Bach

15 National Gallery Chamber Griffes: Indian Sketches

Players String Quartet Janacek: Quartet No. 1

22 Pedja Muzijevic, pianist

Beethoven: Quartet, Op. 130

Scarlatti: Four Sonatas

Granados: Coloquio en la Reja

from Goyescas

Cage: In a Landscape

Schumann: Kreisleriana, Op. 16

29 National Gallery Chamber Franz Danzi: Quintet in E Minor

Players Wind Quintet Anton Reicha: Quintet in G Major

Giulio Briccialdi: Quintet

Concerts resume on 5 October 2003

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.

For the convenience of concert goers

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

The Sixty-first Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

TU ‘ J

2457th Concert

HYUN-JUNG BERGER and JULIUS BERGER

Violoncello Duo

Presented in honor of the exhibition

Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828):

Sculptor ofthe Enlightenment

Sunday Evening, 4 May 2003

Seven O’clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
Program

Jean Barriere

(c. 1705-1747)

Sonata in G Major for Two Violoncelli

(c. 1745)

Andante

Adagio

Allegro prestissimo

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart 0 Isis and Osiris, from The Magic Flute

(1756-1791) Arranged for two violoncelli by Franz Danzi

Joseph Haydn

(1732-1809)

Duet in G Major, H.XIL4

(c. 1785)

Tema con variationi: Moderato

Allegro

Menuet: Allegretto

Luigi Boccherini

(1743-1805)

Adagio and Allegro in A Major

Intermission

Pierre-Louis Hus-Desforges Grande Sonata for Two Violoncelli

(1773-1838) Op. 3, No. 3

Allegro

Capriccio: Andante

Pierangelo Tamiozzo Cimbrian Tune for Two Violoncelli

(c. 1820)

Gioacchino Rossini

(1792-1868)

Duetto for Violoncello and Contrabass

(1824)

Allegro

Andante molto

Allegro

The Musicians

“Julius Berger is, without a doubt, a master cellist. He plays with a

mesmerizing communicative power that comes direct [ ly] and

irresistib[ly| from the platform into your very soul.”—The Manchester

Guardian. “Call him a prophet of the celIo....It is the other-worldly

sound of his cello that needs to be experienced”—Frankfurter

Allegmeine Zeitung. This enthusiastic commentary on the artistry of

German cellist Julius Berger has been echoed by reviewers in the United

States. As one Los Angeles reviewer described it, “His cello sang like a

man in love, at once demanding, then embracing the world with open

arms.”

Julius Berger has appeared as soloist with a number of major

orchestras, including the Bamberger Symphoniker, the Tokyo and

Warsaw Philharmonics, the Festival Strings of Lucerne, and the Israel

Kibbutz Orchestra. He has been heard in Europe’s major concert halls

and in festivals such as Rheingau Musik, Berliner and Wiener

Festwochen, Lockenhaus, Salzburg, Warsaw Autumn, and Takefu.

Berger has frequently been invited to join the empress of Japan for

readings of chamber music. On this continent, Berger has appeared in

New York City, Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, and

Montreal.

Born in Augsburg, Germany, in 1954, Berger studied with

Walter Reichardt and Fritz Kiskalt at the Musikhochschule in Munich,

with Antonio Janigro at the Salzburg Mozarteum, and with Zara Nelsova

and the University of Cincinnati. In addition, he participated in a master

course given by Mstislav Rostropovich. When he was not yet thirty

years old, Berger was appointed to a professorship at the

Musikhochschule in Wurzburg, and he has since held professorships at

the Saarbriicken Musikhochschule and the Johannes-GutenbergUniversitat in Mainz. Currently he is the dean of the Musikhochschule

Augsburg/Niirnberg. He has taught at the International Summer Academy

at Salzburg’s Mozarteum since 1992.

Julius Berger has dedicated a major part of his activities to the

rediscovery of the complete violoncello works of Luigi Boccherini, the

recording of violoncello and piano works of Paul Hindemith, and the

performance of works for violoncello and orchestra by Sofia 

Gubaidulina, Ernest Bloch, Max Bruch, Dvorak, and Richard Strauss.

He plays the “ex-Davidoff’ Guadagnini violoncello, made in 1780.
Hyun-Jung Berger (nee Hyun-Jung Song) was born in South

Korea and began her music studies in Seoul. She continued in Germany

with Julius Berger and Thomas Demega. She has won numerous prizes,

including the Gieseking-Preis of the Musikhochschule des Saarlandes,

the Prize of the Johannes-Gutenberg-Universitat in Mainz, and first prize

at the International Chamber Music Competition of Trapani, Italy. She is

also a prize winner of the International Summer Academies of the

Mozarteum in Salzburg. As a soloist and chamber musician, Hyun-Jung

Berger has been invited by well-known orchestras and festivals, such as

the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, the Korean Symphony Orchestra, and

the Philharmonic Academy of Bern. In 1995 she debuted with the Mainz

Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Lothar Zagrosek. In 1998

she performed in Israel with Julius Berger and the Philharmonisches 

Staatsorchester Halle. Duo recitals and chamber music concerts have

taken her to Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Italy’s Asagio

Festival, and numerous German and Austrian festivals. With Julius 

Berger she has recorded two CDs for EBS, both of which have been

recognized by international music magazines. Julius and Hyun-Jung

Berger appear at the National Gallery by arrangement with Shupp

Artists Management of Port Jefferson, New York.

Program Notes

In collaboration with the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the

Musee national du chateau de Versailles/Reunion des musees nationaux

in France, the National Gallery has organized an exhibition of the work

of the great French sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon (1741-1828), to be

shown in Washington from 4 May through 7 September 2003. The

exhibition, drawn from private and museum collections in the United

States and Europe, is the first major international monographic show

devoted to Houdon’s work. It spans his entire career and brings together 

nearly seventy of his finest sculptures in terracotta, marble, bronze, and

plaster. Houdon portrayed not only the most prominent figures of the

Enlightenment in France, such as Diderot, Voltaire, d’Alembert, and

Rousseau, but also the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714—

1787) and the heroes of the new American republic, Franklin, Jefferson,

Washington, and John Paul Jones. In the first years of the nineteenth

century Houdon portrayed both Napoleon and Josephine, as well as

military figures and members of the bourgeoisie. As testimony to his

continued vigor even in old age, Houdon carved a life-size statue of

Voltaire for the Pantheon when he was seventy-one years old.

The second half of the eighteenth century saw a fundamental

change in musical taste throughout Europe and marked the transition

from baroque to classical style. The music of the baroque, epitomized in

the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, was characterized by contrapuntal

complexity, behind which was the heritage of choral music in four equal

voices. By the time Bach died in 1750, most of his younger

contemporaries were composing in a style that was much more

straightforward and simple because the ethos of the Age of 

Enlightenment demanded it. In music, as in art, there was an urge to

return to the ideals of the culture of classical Greece—formal beauty,

unity, clarity of purpose, and self-control.

One of the most influential documents of the age was the first

Encyclopedic frangaise (1751), subtitled Dictionnaire raisonne des

sciences, des arts, et des metiers (Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences,

the Arts, and the Professions). Among the contributors to that 

voluminous work, those who had the most to say about music were JeanJacques Rousseau, Jean le Rond d’Alembert, and Denis Diderot. They

espoused principles of aesthetics that included the following: nature, in

its healthiest and most elegant manifestations, is the only true inspiration

for the arts; music arose from the simplest prelinguistic expressions,

which were chanted, and melody is the only true musical art; music

expresses the emotional, nonrational side of human nature and is not the

place for elaborate intellectual structures; music should evoke “pleasures

of the imagination” (Diderot) and should have the same effect on the

listener that a landscaped garden has on a viewer; music that focuses on

human traits and the beauty of nature is to be preferred over music that

focuses on the divine or the mysterious; and Italian music, which had

been consistent since 1600 in emphasizing melody over counterpoint, 

ought to be the model for all others.

The French virtuoso cellist Jean Barriere had the good fortune to

live at a time when new instruments by Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737)

were first introduced in France. Thanks in large part to Stradivari's 

improvements, the instrument known as the violoncello succeeded the

viol as the standard tenor instrument in an ensemble consisting of

violins, viola, cello, and bass. Stradivarius’ elevated standard for beauty

of tone and responsiveness of the instrument opened new vistas for

performers and composers and has never been surpassed. Barriere may

well have been among the first Frenchmen to come across these

marvelous Italian instruments, as he studied in that country from 1736 to

1739. His compositions show a strong influence of Italian music of the

period.
The elegant perfection of Mozart’s music made it an instant

favorite of the musical congnoscenti of his time, even if they were not

adherents of the aesthetic principles of the Enlightenment. For those who

were members of the Order of Freemasons, arguably the most influential

secular movement in the Age of Enlightenment, Mozart’s opera The

Magic Flute contained references to Masonic ritual and symbolism, as

well as a story line that promoted the ideal of regeneration of humanity

by moral means. O Isis and Osiris is one of two great arias Mozart

provided for the character Sarastro, the high priest, sung by a bass.

Joseph Haydn was the dean of composers of the classical period,

who in the course of his long life saw music evolve from the baroque

through the mature classical period to early romanticism. He was the

primary proponent of many of the changes that occurred in music during

that time, particularly in the development of the symphony, the string

quartet, the oratorio, and the mass with orchestral accompaniment. 

Haydn enjoyed a special relationship with Prince Nikolaus Esterhazy, in

whose court he served from 1761 to 1790. An avid music lover, the

prince learned to play the baryton, a version of the viola d'amore that

had extra strings behind the neck. Haydn, one of the most prolific

composers of all time, obliged his patron’s desire for repertoire by

producing thirty-three duets for two barytons and 126 trios for baryton

and two violins. Since Prince Nikolaus was one of very few enthusiasts 

of the instrument, the baryton fell out of use almost immediately after 

his death, but the works Haydn wrote for it continue to be performed by

cellists.

Although he was not a lion among Italian composers, Luigi

Boccherini was extremely prolific (his chamber works alone number 

more than three hundred) and he happened to write a minuet for his

String Quintet in E Major, Op. 11, No. 5, that has enjoyed immense

popularity ever since the late nineteenth century and is arguably the

single most famous piece of Italian classical chamber music. Boccherini

was a cellist, and a large number of his works were for that instrument.

Evidence of his fondness for the instrument includes the fact that his

string quintets call for two cellos, whereas the standard string quintet

consists of two violins, two violas, and one cello.

Cimbria was the name given by the Romans to the area that is

now northwestern Denmark. The Cimbrians were among the Barbarian

tribes who attacked Roman outposts and pushed Roman troops as far

south as the southern Alps, where they were finally defeated and

slaughtered by a Roman army led by Catullus in 101 B.C. The few

Cimbrians who survived the campaign returned to their rugged 

homeland, and their descendants undertook no more great migrations.

The Cimbrians were converted to Christianity in approximately 1000

A.D. By the sixteenth century, the region came to be known by its

indigenous name, Thy, and its residents were frequently in a state of

rebellion against lords, bishops, and other representatives of the larger

kingdom. The region was the site of the last Danish witch trial (1699)

and the first Danish high school (1850).

Rossini spent the season 1823-1824 in London, where he was

the darling of English aristocratic society. His Duetto was the result of a

commission from David Solomons, one of the founders of London’s

Westminster Bank, who eventually became Lord Mayor of London and

a member of Parliament, all the while maintaining his hobby of playing the

cello. He not only paid handsomely for the composer’s services, but also

hired the most renowned contrabass virtuoso of the day, Domenico

Dragonetti, to perform the duet with him. Knowing that Solomons had

such a performance in mind, Rossini wisely assigned the fast triplets and

brilliant arpeggios to the contrabass, leaving the broad, flowing lines to

the cello. In this performance, the second cello replaces the contrabass.

Concerts at the National Gallery of Art

Under the direction ofGeorge Manos

Concerts in May and June 2003

May

11 The Aulos Ensemble

Presented in honor of the

exhibition Jean-Antoine

Houdon (1741-1828):

Sculptor ofthe

Enlightenment

18 Livia Sohn, violinist

Rameau: Suites from Lesfetes

d'Hebe and Les hides galantes

Works by Jacques Duphly and

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

J. S. Bach: Sonata, BWV 1016

Grieg: Sonata No. 3

Works by Jonathan Berger and

Jeno Hubay