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performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell phones

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West Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

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the Garden Cafe remains open for light refreshments

until 6:00 pm on Sundays.

Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, dc

www.nga.gov

Concerts are made possible in part through the generosity ofdonors

to the National Gallery ofArt through The Circle. Reserved seating is

available in recognition oftheir support. Please contact the development 

office at (202) 842-6450 or circk@nga.gov for more information.

The Seventy-second Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

3,009th Concert

Philippe Entremont, pianist

June 22, 2014

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Sonata no. 11 in A Major, KV 331 (1778-1783)

Andante grazioso

Menuetto

Alla Turca: Allegretto

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Sonata no. 23 in F Minor, op. 57 (“Appassionata”) (1804-1805)

Allegro assai

Andante con moto

Allegro ma non troppo; presto

INTERMISSION

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)

Ballade no. 1 in G Minor, op. 23 (1831)

Ballade no. 2 in F Major, op. 38 (1836-1839)

Ballade no. 3 in A-jlat Major, op. 47 (1841)

Ballade no. 4 in F Minor, op. 52 (1842)

The Musician

PHILIPPE ENTREMONT

In the sixty-one years since his American debut at the National Gallery on

January 4,1953, Philippe Entremonfs illustrious career has included recitals 

in most ofthe prominent halls in the United States as well as Asia, his native 

France, and the rest of Europe. Shortly after his Gallery concert, he played 

his New York debut in Carnegie Hall, performing piano concertos by Franz 

Liszt and Andre Jolivet (1905-1974). The subsequent years brought him

many honors, among them Austria’s Arts and Sciences Cross of Honor and

Great Cross ofthe Republic as well as France’s Legion of Honor, Order of

Merit, and Order ofArts and Letters, in which he has been named Commander. Chosen to perform in the “Piano Extravaganza ofthe Century” at the 2008

Beijing Olympic Games, he is president ofthe International Certificate for 

Piano Artists, and the Bel’Arte Foundation ofBrussels. From 2005 to 2012, he

directed the famed American Conservatory of Fontainebleau, a post formerly

held by the legendary pianist and pedagogue Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979).

During the last thirty years, Entremont has distinguished himself on the

podium as well as at the piano. Among the orchestras he has conducted in

recent seasons are the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie, Israel Festival, Munich

Symphony, and Shenzhen Symphony orchestras. He is the artistic director

and conductor ofthe Santo Domingo Music Festival Orchestra, and lifetime

laureate conductor ofthe Israel Chamber, Munich Symphony, and Vienna

Chamber orchestras. From 1981 to 2002, he served as music director ofthe

New Orleans Philharmonic, Denver Symphony, and Netherlands Chamber

orchestras. In 2012 he guest-conducted the National Gallery ofArt Orchestra

in works by Brahms, Mozart, and Richard Danielpour.

Philippe Entremont appears at the National Gallery by arrangement

with Columbia Artists Management, Inc., www.cami.com.

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Program Notes

Historians have suggested that Mozart may have composed his Sonata no. u

in A Major as early as 1778 in Paris or as late as 1783 in Salzburg or Vienna.

It is a mysterious masterwork, not only for its indeterminate date of composition, but also for its lack of a true sonata form. The first movement is

a comfortable siciliano—a lilting “long-short, long-short” dance rhythm

persists throughout its theme and six variations. While this movement lacks

the characteristic allegro tempo of a typical sonata first movement, brisk and

virtuosic figurations in the later variations provide the expected animation.

While the second movement fits the mold of a traditional Mozartean minuet,

the third movement takes the listener on a good-natured exotic romp—the

famous “Rondo alia turca,” also known as the “Turkish March.”

For central Europeans in the eighteenth century, Turkish culture was 

a source of exotic titillation, but Turkish military might was a source of

consternation, particularly for the Viennese. In imitating the melodic turns

and rhythmic bumps and crashes ofTurkish military music, Mozart provided his audience with a kind of comic relieffrom their anxiety about

things Turkish. The melody, with its hasty turns and immediate repetition

of every phrase, is a sendoffofTurkish music as Mozart’s listeners might

have heard it in military parades.

Common to both the march form and the rondo form are the duple

rhythm, the question-and-answer phrasing, and the exact repetition ofthe

opening section whenever it returns. Mozart uses just two tonalities—

C major and A minor—as was typical ofmilitary music at the time, due

to the limitations of eighteenth-century band instruments, which had one

or two valves at most and could play in only a few keys. These also happen

to be “easy” tonalities for the pianist, since they involve only the white

keys ofthe piano. Within these simple parameters, Mozart came up with a

true tour-de-force rondo, a movement whose vitality and flamboyance have 

cemented this sonata’s legacy as one ofthe composers most beloved works.

4

Sonata no. 2j in F Minor (“Appassionata”) is one ofthree famous piano

sonatas that Beethoven wrote early in his middle period (1803-1814), after he

began to accept the reality ofhis irreversible hearing loss. Like the “Waldstein”

(Sonata no. 21) and “Les Adieux” (no. 26), this sonata has a moniker (“Passionate”) that was assigned to it by a publisher, who no doubt had in mind

the first movement’s juxtaposition ofmystery, violence, and lyricism and the

last movement’s unrelenting fury. The first movement follows the traditional

sonata form, and the placid second movement is a set ofthree variations on

a chorale-like theme, which contains dotted rhythms reminiscent ofthe first

theme ofthe opening movement. The variations present a gradual increase

in activity, with the third variation coming to a sudden conclusion with a

reprise ofthe opening theme. The furiously pounding third movement

follows without pause, a perpetual motion finale with dramatic harmonic

motion and several expressive cadenzas. The coda presses forward in an

even faster presto, concluding in total tragedy.

Frederic Chopin composed his four Ballades over a period oftwelve

years, beginning in 1831, the year he immigrated to Paris from his native

Poland by way ofVienna. During this period he received enthusiastic praise

from the limited number ofpeople who heard and documented his playing. 

British musicologist Arthur Hedley (1905-1969) noted that as a pianist

Chopin “was unique in acquiring a reputation ofthe highest order on the

basis of a minimum of public appearances—few more than thirty in the

course ofhis lifetime.” Nevertheless, with his performances for private

audiences in Paris salons, Chopin was able to develop meaningful relationships with some ofthe cultural heroes ofthe time who frequented those

intimate gatherings, among them Hector Berlioz, Eugene Delacroix, Heinrich Heine, Franz Liszt, and George Sand.

A genre developed in and specific to the romantic era, the ballade

features a rhapsodic narrative style free ofpredictable classical structure.

Prior to the nineteenth century, the term “ballade” generally described an

old French verse-form used for grand and rhetorical subjects. Chopin first

used the term in music, composing four Ballades as large, single-movement

works with rhapsodic structure. Formally, the works feature a “mirror

5
reprise,” or a reverse presentation ofthe two expositional themes in the

recapitulation. Ballades nos. 2-4 are exclusively in 6/8 time, and the majority 

of Ballade no. 1 is in a similarly flowing 6/4 time. Chopin began his Ballade

no. 1 during his first lonely years away from home in Vienna. Upon his

move to Paris the work was published and dedicated to Baron Nathaniel 

von Stockhausen, the Hanoverian ambassador to France. Robert Schumann

(1810-1856) received the work well, stating, “I received a new Ballade from

Chopin. It seems to be a work closest to his genius (although not the most

ingenious), and I told him that I like it best of all his compositions. After

quite a lengthy silence he replied with emphasis, ‘I am happy to hear this,

since I too like it most and hold it dearest.’” Chopin would dedicate his

Ballade no. 2 to Schumann, one ofhis earliest and strongest supporters after

his move to Western Europe. Ballade no. 3 begins with a lyrical introduction

that, while thematically unrelated to the body ofthe piece, receives a reprise

near the end. Ballade no. 4 features significantly more counterpoint than

the other three, and many pianists consider this the greatest technical and

musical challenge ofthe four. British pianist and composer John Ogdon

(1937-1989) called Ballade no. 4 “the most exalted, intense, and sublimely 

powerful of all Chopin’s compositions.... It is unbelievable that it lasts only

twelve minutes, for it contains the experience of a lifetime.”

Program notes by Michael Jacko, music program assistant,

National Gallery ofArt

6

Upcoming Concert at the National Gallery ofArt

National Gallery ofArt Chamber Players

Music by Bach, Beethoven, and Gounod

Made possible by the Gottesman Fund 

in memory of Milton M. Gottesman

June 29, 2014

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

On September 7, 2014, the seventy-third season

of concerts at the National Gallery will begin with 

performance by the U.S. Air Force Strings

in honor of Degas/Cassatt.