Admission to the National Gallery ofArt 

and all of its programs is free of charge,

except as noted.

The use of cameras or recording equipment during the performance is not

allowed. Please be sure that all portable

electronic devices are turned off.

The department of music produced

these program notes. Copyright © 2018

Board ofTrustees, National Gallery of

Art, Washington

Concerts are made possible in part

through the generosity of donors to

the National Gallery ofArt through

The Circle. Reserved seating is available

in recognition of their support. Please 

contact the development office at 

(202) 842-6450 or circle@nga.gov for 

more information.

Cover Gerard ter Borch the Younger,

The Suitor’s Visit (detail), c. 1658, National

Gallery ofArt, Washington, Andrew W.

Mellon Collection

nga.gov/music

76TH SEASON OF CONCERTS

JANUARY 21, 2018 / NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
Program

Piffaro, The Renaissance Band

Joan Kimball and Bob Wiemken, Artistic Co-Directors

Priscilla Herreid, bagpipes, shawm, dulcian, recorders

Grant Herreid, lute, guitar, recorders, shawm, percussion

Greg Ingles, sackbut, krumhorn, recorder

Joan Kimball, bagpipes, shawm, dulcian, recorders, krumhorn

Christa Patton, bagpipes, harp, shawm, recorder

Erik Schmalz, sackbut, krumhorn, recorder

Bob Wiemken, dulcians, shawm, recorders, krumhorn, percussion

Flemish & Dutch Masters: A Celebration of Musical Geniusfrom the Low Countries

Celebrating Vermeer and the Masters ofGenre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry

JANUARY 21,2018/3:30

WEST BUILDING, WEST GARDEN COURT

SET I

Suite of Popular Tunes

Die winter is verganghen

Laet ons mit hartzen

Ihesus is een kyndekyn cleyn

Laet ons

bagpipes, guitar, percussion

SET II

Loyset Compere (c. 1445-1518)

Alonsferons barbe

Antoine Brumel (c. 1460-1512/1513)

Mater patris

Josquin des Prez (c. 1450/1455-1521)

Adieu mes amours

Heinrich Isaac (c. 1450/1455-1517)

E qui le dira

Johannes de Stokem (c. 1445-1487)

Brunette

Anonymous, Flemish, late 15th century

Rompeltier

shawms, sackbuts, dulcian

SET III

Alexander Agricola (c. 1446-1506)

Cecils non iudicat de coloribus

Arr. Grant Herreid

Je pris amours

Jacob Obrecht (c. 1457/1458-1505)

Tander naken

2

Jacob Clemens non Papa

(c. 1510/1515-c. 1555)

Godt es myn licht

Jacob Obrecht

Laet u ghenoughen, lieverJohann

recorders, lute, harp

SET IV

Tielman Susato (c. 1510/1515-

after 1570)

Suite ofDances from Het derde musyck

boexken

Bergerette Sans Roch 

Allemaingne IV—Fagot

Pavane Mille regretz

Bergerette Dont vient cela

Ronde

bagpipes, krumhorns, recorder, lute, 

harp, sackbuts, shawms, dulcian,

percussion

Intermission

SET V

Giaches de Wert (1535-1596)

Nunco mucho costo poco

Jean de Castro (c. 1540-C.1600)

StirpisJohannes

Giaches de Wert

Virgo Maria hodie

shawms, sackbuts, dulcian

SET VI

Anonymous, Dutch, 16th century

Heth sold ein meiskin gam om win

Carolus Luython (1557-1620)

Almande c’est pour vous belle dame

Almande

Galliarda

Het soude een meysken gaen

om wijn

bagpipe, lute, harp, recorders

SET VII

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621)

Tes beaux yeux causent mon amour

Cornelis Verdonck (1563-1625)

Je me plaignoy des beau yeux

de madame

Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck 

Fortune My Foe

Psalm 134: Orsus, serviteurs

du Seigneur

recorders, harp

SET VIII

Giaches de Wert

Adesto dolori

Tielman Susato

Suite ofDances from Het derde musyck

boexken

Passe et medio—Reprise Le pingne

Three gaillardes

La Morisque

sackbuts, dulcians, shawms, bagpipes,

percussion

3
The Ensemble

“Widely regarded as North America’s masters of music for Renaissance Wind Band”

(St. Paul Pioneer Press), Piffaro has delighted audiences throughout the United States, 

Europe, Canada, and South America since its founding in 1980. Piffaro recreates the

rustic music of the peasantry, as well as the elegant sounds of the official, professional

wind bands of the late Medieval and Renaissance periods. Its ever-expanding instrumentarium includes shawms, dulcians, sackbuts, recorders, krumhorns, bagpipes,

lutes, guitars, harps, and a variety of percussion—all careful reconstructions of

instruments from the period.

Under the direction ofits artistic co-directors,Joan Kimball and Bob Wiemken,

Piffaro concertizes extensively, both at home with its four-concert series in Philadelphia, as well as nationally and internationally. The ensemble debuted at Page Alter

Musik in Regensburg, Germany, in 1993, and has returned to Europe frequently since

then, performing at major festivals in Austria, Germany, France, Belgium, Holland,

Spain, and the Czech Republic. T he group has traveled to South America, including

Bolivia under the auspices ofthat country’s biannual International Renaissance and

Baroque Festival. Piffaro has appeared at major early music festivals nationwide, including those in Boston, Berkeley, Milwaukee, Indianapolis, and Madison, as well as in

early music and chamber music series in the United States and Canada. In 2019, the

ensemble will return to Regensburg for its seventh appearance at that noted festival.

Piffaro has been active in the field of education since its inception, and has been

honored twice for its work by Early MusicAmerica, receiving the “Early Music Brings 

History Alive” award in 2003, and the Laurette Goldberg “Lifetime Achievement

Award in Early Music Outreach” in 2011. Every two years, Piffaro’s National

Recorder Competition for Young Players held in Philadelphia attracts talented

competitors from around the country.

Recordings are a significant part of the ensemble’s work, with eighteen released

since 1992 —four on the Deutsche Grammophon/Archiv Produktion label. Piffaro 

has issued two highly regarded collaborations: in 2005, one with the renowned

Belgian vocal group, Capilla Flamenca, and the other a work commissioned by

Piffaro, featuring Kile Smith’s Vespers with the chamber choir, The Crossing.

The latter recording, released on the PARMA/Navona label in 2009, was received

with critical acclaim—“a masterpiece of the deepest kind,” said AudiophileAudition.

Piffaro’s most recent recording, Back Before Bach, was released in July 2017.

4

T he history of music, composers, singers, and instrumentalists in the Low Countries

in the 150 years or so before the birth ofJohannes Vermeer in 1632 tells a fascinating

story of local renown and international acclaim. From the late fifteenth century on, 

the so-called Netherlandish compositional style of sacred polyphony set the standard

for all of Europe. Composers from the Netherlands were so popular that courts

throughout Spain and Italy, for instance, vied for their employ and also sought

singers from the Low Countries to populate their musical establishments. Called the

oltremontani, or “those from across the Alps,” these musical emissaries occupied these

most esteemed posts well into the sixteenth century and became the teachers for a

new breed ofindigenous composers that began to emerge in the second quarter of

that century. Others spent the better part of their careers locally, occupying the principal posts in what are now Belgium and Holland. One can’t imagine the subsequent

course of European musical composition without the foundation laid by these extraordinary artists. Their names are numerous, if not of household familiarity to most

people today. One need only mention a few of the illustrious ones—Jakob Obrecht,

Loyset Compere, Alexander Agricola,Josquin des Prez, and Heinrich Isaac—whose 

works marked and shaped the dawn of Renaissance music-making. Subsequent generations of Netherlandish composers continued these compositional heights, including

the curiously named Jakob Clemens non Papa, the sobriquet very likely earned to 

distinguish him from the reigning Pope Clement VII. The composer is best known

for his Souterliedekens, translations of the Psalms into Dutch, and for his Dutch-based

sacred songs.

The latter part of the century witnessed the notable Giaches de Wert, whose 

forays into madrigalian technique influenced many, including none other than the

great Claudio Monteverdi. However, de Wert’s output excelled in every area of composition, whether sacred or secular. His Netherlandish colleague,Jean de Castro,

brought northern sacred polyphonic style to a highly polished level, innovating with 

the latest techniques of word painting and textual clarity.

At the dawn of the seventeenth century, the generation leading right up to the

birth ofVermeer, several northern composers held their own against the ascendancy

ofItalian compositional success at the time and were highly esteemed throughout

the continent. Most notable among these was the Netherlandish composer, organist,

and teacher,Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. Born in Deventer, he spent much of his

career in Amsterdam, where he was greatly sought after for his teaching and was

highly influential at the keyboard. Renowned as one of the leading composers of the

musically rich Dutch Golden Age, his reputation marked him as equal to his more

well-known European contemporaries.

Program Notes

5
Despite Italy’s vaunted position in all the arts at the beginning ofthe Baroque

era, the Low Countries continued to produce composers of note like Sweelinck, 

whose works displayed a full knowledge and mastery of contemporary styles. Other

names emerge as well, though considerably less known today, including the Flemish

Cornelis Verdonck. One ofthe last members of the Franco-Flemish school of

polyphony, he was a notable composer of madrigals in a style that blended both

Italian and native Netherlandish idioms. The Flemish painter and printmaker of the

early Baroque period, Michael Sweerts, who is known for his allegorical and genre

paintings, portraits, and tronies (Dutch for “faces,” a genre characteristic of Dutch

Golden Age painting), was described by Verdonck in 1628 as “renowned in music”

and, “if we believe Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck... he could match any Italian composer.”

Obscurer still, yet nonetheless influential, is the Antwerp-born Carolus Luython,

known for his lute and keyboard skills and compositions.

A look at music and compositional activity from the Low Countries during the

Renaissance and early Baroque period prior to Vermeer’s life would be remiss without significant representation by Tielman Susato, noted composer, arranger, publisher, 

and instrumentalist. Born most likely in Soest, in the Netherlands, the details of his

early life are lost to posterity. However, in 1543, he founded the Netherlands’ first

music publishing house using movable music type. His shop in Antwerp was named

“At the Sign of the Crumhorn.” Until Susato set up his press, music printing had

been done mainly in Italy, France, and Germany. He was most influential through his

printing and dissemination throughout Europe of many of the major Franco-Flemish

composers, though his own publication in 1551 of current dances in lucid and vivid

arrangements is his best-known achievement today.

Vermeer’s depictions of music-making and instruments lean mostly to the chamber, 

indoor events featuring keyboards like the harpsichord and clavichord and bowed 

string instruments such as the violin and viola da gamba. However, his depictions of

trumpeters show his awareness ofthe larger world of outdoor music-making, in which 

the professional wind bands of court, cathedral, and town prevailed. It is just such an

ensemble that Piffaro has sought over its history to emulate, building its inventory

ofshawms (double-reed ancestors of the oboe and English horn), dulcians (bassoon

predecessors), sackbuts (early trombones), recorders, and krumhorns, together with

lutes, guitars, harps, and percussion. All these sounds would have been as familiar to

Vermeer in the Netherlands as our band and orchestral instruments are to us today.

His was an aural world rich in tonal color and intricate in compositional detail, 

whether in the intimacy of private household music-making or the grand vistas of

public spaces and outdoor landscapes. We hope that this concert gives a taste of both

these worlds that influenced the life and work ofJohannes Vermeer.

6

Upcoming Events ofthe SeventySixth Season of The William

Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot

Belin Concerts

Unless otherwise noted, all programs 

take place in the West Building,

West Garden Court.

Sybarite5

Outliers

Celebrating Outliers andAmerican

VanguardArt

January 28, 3:30

Daniel Bernard Roumain, violin

Yayoi Ikawa, piano

Redemption Songs & Sonatas

February 4, 3:30

Curtis on Tour

A Celebration ofLeonard Bernstein

February 11, 3:30

Trio con Brio Copenhagen 

To Travel Is to Live

Music by Grieg, Gade, Mendelssohn, 

and Tchaikovsky

February 18, 3:30

Narek Hakhnazaryan, cello

Noreen Polera, piano

Music by Albeniz, Brahms,

Schumann, and others 

February 25, 3:30

ETHEL

Blue Dressfor String Quartet

Music by contemporary

women composers

March 4, 3:30

Janoska Ensemble

Classical music with jazz, gypsy, tango,

Latin, and a dash of pop

March 11, 3:30

The Canales Project 

This I Choose...

A celebration of the choices of

extraordinary women

March 18, 3:30

Benedetto Lupo, piano

Featuring solo piano works by Debussy

Celebrating Cezanne Portraits

March 25, 3:30

Richard Stoltzman, clarinet 

Mika Stoltzman, marimba

Duo Cantando

April 1, 3:30

Music by Bill Douglas, Chick Corea,

Torn Takemitsu, and John Zorn

Heinavanker Ensemble 

Featuring ancient Estonian songs

and folk hymns

Celebrating Michel Sittozv: Estonian Painter

at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

April 8, 3:30

Fretwork

Featuring music for the viol consort 

April 15, 3:30

INSCAPE Chamber Orchestra

Saint-Saens, Carnival oftheAnimals, with

new verses by Mark BamuthiJoseph 

Mahler, Symphony no. 4, chamber version

April 22, 3:30