The third movement (Scherzo: Allegro molto), in an ABA format, is

driven by a forcefully syncopated rhythmic pattern that is unrelenting 

until the entry ofthe trio (B) section offers a gentle reprieve. At its close

the opening theme (A) is reiterated. Writing about this movement, 

Michael Steinberg notes: “By temperament, Schubert was more inclined

to the plan in which the center of gravity is in the first movement, and a

finale relatively light by comparison. Yet often he liked to work with at

least the externals of a ‘grand’ finale. One solution is the unleashing of

an amazing storm of physical energy, and the present movement is a

glorious example of it.”

The finale {Presto), using the sonata-rondo format, is a grotesque,

Gothic dance of death with the tempo of a tarantella and a daring coda

marked prestissimo. As stated by Harold Truscott in Arthur Cohn’s The

Literature of Chamber Music: “The mood is that of a dance of death

informed with the spirit ofthe Dies iraeP

Program notes on Bolcom, Thomas, and Kellogg

by the Ying Quartet, adapted and edited by Elmer Booze

Program notes on Schubert by Elmer Booze

The use ofcameras or recording equipment during

the performance is not allowed. Please be sure that all

electronic devices are turned off.

For the convenience ofconcertgoers

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

The Sixtieth Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

ate

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2424th Concert

THE YING QUARTET

TIMOTHY YING, violin JANET YING, violin

PHILLIP YING, viola DAVID YING, cello

Sunday Evening, 9 June 2002

Seven O'clock

West Building, East Garden Court

Admissionfree
PROGRAM

William Bolcom Three Rags

(b. 1938) (Arranged for String Quartet in 1989)

Poltergeist (1971)

The Graceful Ghost (1970-1971)

Incineratorag (1971)

Augusta Read Thomas *Eagle at Sunrise

(b. 1964) (2001)

Daniel Kellogg *Three American Hymns for String Quartet

(b. 1976) (2001)

How Firm a Foundation

Were You There When They Crucified My Lord

I Come with Joy to Meet My Lord

INTERMISSION

Franz Schubert String Quartet in D Minor

(1797-1828) “Death and the Maiden”

D. 810(1824)

Allegro

Andante con moto

Scherzo: Allegro molto

Presto

*Worksfrom the Ying Quartet’s “LifeMusic” commissioning project,

supported by the Institutefor American Music

Formed in 1992, The Ying Quartet has undertaken a constant quest to

develop ways of making artistic and creative expression an essential part

of everyday life. In celebration of its tenth season, the quartet has

included a visiting residency at Symphony Space in New York City

linking music with poetry, a project with Da Camera of Houston to bring

chamber music into the lives of Houston’s working people, and an

exploration with the Turtle Island String Quartet ofjazz, improvisation,

and the classical string quartet tradition.

Natives of Chicago, the Ying siblings began their career as an

ensemble in 1992 in the farm town ofJesup, Iowa (population 2,000), as

the first recipients of a National Endowment for the Arts grant to support

chamber music in rural America. The Quartet participated fully in the

community, performing on countless occasions for audiences of six to

six hundred in a residency so successful that it was widely chronicled in

both the national and international media, including feature articles in the

New York Times and STRAD magazine and coverage on CBS Sunday

Morning.

While the quartet was in Jesup, its earned the 1993 Naumburg 

Chamber Music Award for its exceptional musical qualities. As the

quartet in residence at the Eastman School of Music of the University of

Rochester, the Ying Quartet plans and directs a rigorous, sequential

chamber music curriculum that integrates intensive musical instruction

with training in creative presentation and communication skills. In

addition, the quartet presents concerts throughout the greater Rochester

community.

Although he won the Pulitzer Prize in music for his Twelve New

Etudesfor Piano, the American pianist and composer William Bolcom is

probably best recognized for stimulating a 1970s revival of public

interest in a turn-of-the century American art form known as ragtime.

Among the many ragtime compositions he composed for his own revival

concert performances are the three rags on tonight’s program. Bolcom

subsequently arranged them for string quartet. Poltergeist and The

Graceful Ghost are part of Bolcom’s rag trilogy entitled Three Ghost

Rags, of which Dream Shadows is the third. According to Bolcom, “ The
Graceful Ghost is a reminiscence of my father. In this piece I have tried

to imagine an extension of Louis Chauvin’s gentle French Creole quality.

[Chauvin was the co-writer of Heliotrope Bouquet with Scott Joplin.] It

was written in 1970, the year my father passed away.”

In her program note for Eagle at Sunrise, composer Augusta Read

Thomas writes: “My favorite moment in any piece of music is the

moment of maximum risk and striving. Whether the venture is tiny or

large, loud or soft, fragile or strong, passionate, erratic, ordinary, or

eccentric...! Maybe another way to say this is the moment of exquisite 

humanity and raw soul. All art that I cherish has an element of love and

recklessness and desperation. I like music that is alive and jumps off the

page and out ofthe instrument as ifsomething big is at stake.

Eagle at Sunrise is a modest seven-minute work that features the cello,

largely in the higher registers. The music is immediate, bold, colorful,

and dramatic. The work celebrates the passionate sound of the strings

and is built from a tightly wrought harmonic scheme and its resultant 

counterpoint. The spirit of America, symbolized by the eagle, our

national bird, at sunrise, is an image of hope and implicit faith in the

inevitability of new beginnings and ardent dreams.”

The Koussevitzky Foundation of the Library of Congress

commissioned Eagle at Sunrise. It is dedicated to the memory of Serge

and Natalie Koussevitzky and to the members ofthe Ying String Quartet.

The work premiered in January 2002 at the Library of Congress.

Three American Hymns for String Quartet was commissioned for the

Ying Quartet by the Hanson Institute for American Music ofthe Eastman

School of Music of the University of Rochester. Composer Daniel

Kellogg writes: “[The quartet] Quartet seeks to celebrate American

hymns and the power and purpose they have had in American Lives.

Each movement...seeks to express the meaning of the hymn that is

quoted. How Firm a Foundation celebrates the strength of God and how

he will sustain us through all difficult times. The melody from this hymn

comes from a collection of hymns called The Sacred Harp. Were You

There When They Crucified My Lord is a song of lament that sings ofthe

sorrow and pain endured in the death of Christ. It is a Black

American spiritual and has also served as a song of lament for the pain

and suffering in our own lives. I Come with Joy to Meet My Lord is a

hymn that speaks of the joy found by being in the presence of God. It

talks about meeting with God through Sunday worship, [in addition] to

looking toward a full restoration with God in heaven. Although this

melody has a slight Irish flavor, it is an American folk tune.”

Der Tod und das Madchen (Death and the Maiden), the eponym of

Schubert’s Quartet No. 14 in D Minor, is from the poem of the same

name by the German poet Matthias Claudius (1740-1815). According to

writer A. Neumann (translated from the German by E. Berg): “Claudius

stirred up experiences and sounds in the composer that came from the

innermost depth of his nature.... The dying girl is startled when Death

enters, she implores him for her life, but Death takes her fear away, for—

according to his words—he comes as a friend and not as a judge.” The

music Schubert produced in response to Claudius’ words is so

charismatic as to place it in a lofty musical realm where there is a

romantic connection between music and death.

Set in the sonata-allegro format, the first movement (Allegro), with its

outset of explosive fortissimos and sudden contrasting pianissimos,

figuratively portents tragedy as a mood for the entire quartet. The daring

rhythmic drive of the triplet figures gives the main theme its ominous

tension with a contrasting second theme in thirds and sixths that presages

the music of Brahms. After an extensive development section, motivic

elements from the opening movement endorse the recapitulation, as well

as the piu mosso coda, which ends pianissimo.

The second movement (Andante con moto), clothed in the ambiance of

death, relates most directly to Schubert’s celebrated song Death and the

Maiden, D. 531. The theme on which the variations are based comes

from the introductory piano accompaniment to Schubert’s song of the

same title. Death is here a pacifier, contrary to its presence in the first and

last movements as an awesome specter. Each of the five variations is

emotionally expressive without resorting to abandon or wretchedness.

The brief four-measure coda follows the fifth variation and continues the

established key of G minor, although it ends in G major with the raised

third (tierce de Picardie).