For the convenience of concertgoers 

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:oo pm.

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.

Please note that late entry or reentry of

the West Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, dc

Mailing address

2000B South Club Drive

Landover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

The Sixty-fifth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,618th Concert

Anna Maria Pammer, soprano

Markus Vorzellner, pianist

May 6, 2007

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Admissionfree
Program

Alban Berg (1885-1935)

Vier Lieder, op.2 (1909-1910)

Schlafen, schlafen

From Dem Schmerz sein Recht by

Christian Friedrich Flebbel (1813-1863)

Schlafend tragt man mich in mein Heimatland

From Der Gluhende by Alfred Mombert (1872-1942)

Nun ich der Riesen Starksten

From Der Gluhende by Alfred Mombert

Warm die Lufte, es sprieft Gras aufsonnigen Wiesen

From Der Gluhende by Alfred Mombert

Anton Webern (1883-1945)

FiinfLieder nach Stefan George, op.4 (1908-1909)

Eingang: Welt der gestalten lang lebewohl!

Noch zwingt mich treue iiber dir zu wachen 

Ja Heil und Dank dir

So ich traurig bin

Ihr tanzt zu dem Herde

Webern

Vier Lieder nach Stefan George (1908-1909)

Erwachen aus dem tiefsten Traumesschosse

KunfttagI

TrauerI

Das lockere Saatgefilde lechzet krank

Webern

FiinfLieder, op.

3 (1908-1909)

From Der siebente Ring by Stefan George (1868-1933) 

Dies ist ein Lied

Im Windesweben 

An Baches Ranft

Im Morgentaun

Kahl reckt der Baum

INTERMISSION

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)

Das Buch der hangenden Garten, op. 15 (1908-1909)

Fifteen songs on poems by Stefan George

Unterm Schutz von dichten Blattergriinden

Hain in diesen Paradiesen

Als Neuling trat ich ein in dein Gehege

Da meine Lippen reglos sind und brennen

Saget mir, aufwelchem Pfade

Jedem Werke bin ich fiirder tot

Angst und Hoffen wechselnd mich belclemmen

Wenn ich heut nicht deinen Leib beriihre

Streng ist uns das Gluck und sprode

Das schone Beet betracht ich mir im Harren

Als wir hinter dem bebliimten Tore

Wenn sich bei heilger Ruh in tiefen Matten

Du lehnest wider eine Silberweide

Sprich nicht immer von dem Laub

Wir bevollcerten die Abend-diistern Lauben
The Musicians

ANNA MARIA PAMMER

Anna Maria Pammer studied cello and singing in Vienna, specializing in

lieder and oratorio, and received training in musical theater stagecraft as a

member ofthe Zurich International Opera Studio. Her performance in Udo

Zimmermann’s Der Schuhu und diejliegende Prinzessin under the baton

ofthe composer at the 1995 Salzburg Festival was among her first. Since

then she has performed at Vienna’s Volksoper and Kammeroper, and in the

theaters of Cologne, Darmstadt, Klagenfurt, Saint Gallen, and Ulm. She

regularly appears with the Neue Opera Wien and Netzzeit.

Pammer has performed at the music festivals of Bregenz, Salzburg, and

Vienna, as well as at the Bruckner Festival Linz, the Haydn Festival, the 

Kissinger Summer Festival, and the Styrian Autumn Festival. In recent years

she has collaborated with such renowned ensembles as the Arditti String

Quartet, the Aron Quartet, the Bruckner Orchester Linz, and the Vienna

Symphony Orchestra, and with violinists Andras Keller and Gidon Kremer.

Her repertoire ranges from medieval to contemporary music. In 2004 Pammer made her stage directing debut with Handel’s Acis and Galatea.

MARKUS VORZE1LNER

Viennese pianist Markus Vorzellner studied at the city’s University of

Music and Performing Arts with Elisabeth Dvorak-Weisshaar and Harold 

Ossberger. For several years Vorzellner was the studio accompanist for

Austrian baritone and teacher Walter Berry's (1929-2000) master classes.

He has also served as an accompanist at the Raber master classes in Hungary,

the Summer Singing Academy in Eisenstadt, and the Vereinte Stimmen in

Vienna. Among the festivals in which he has participated are Haydntage 

Eisenstadt, KlangBogen Wien, and Styriarte. For the past decade he has performed early-music repertoire on harpsichord and fortepiano as a soloist, an

accompanist, and a member or guest ofthe Ensemble Lyrique Amsterdam, 

the Ungarische Nationalphilharmonie, and the Wiener Akademie. An active

4

performer of contemporary music, Vorzellner also takes a keen interest in 

traditional Viennese popular songs and comic theatrical songs. His published lectures and articles deal with subjects ranging from musical and

cultural history to philosophy.

Program Notes

This concert comprises songs written within a two-year period by teachercomposer Arnold Schoenberg and his two most famous students, Alban

Berg and Anton Webern. Together, they were the principal figures ofthe

second Viennese school. These brief, intimate songs are among the last of

their kind, written before the trio abandoned the genre in the period coinciding with World War I and moved on to write longer compositions. With

the exception ofthe first group ofsongs by Berg, all ofthe lyrics are poetry

penned by Stefan George (1868-1933), who is credited with reviving classicism in German poetry in the nineteenth century.

It was fate that Berg was looking for a composition teacher at the same

time as Schoenberg was seeking a student through an advertisement in a

newspaper. Their relationship began in 1904, just after Schoenberg’s thirtieth birthday—before he had undertaken his most dramatic stylistic changes,

which Berg later witnessed and from which he took inspiration. The Vier

Lieder, op. 2, written when Berg was twenty-five, mark the beginning of a

new period. His earlier pieces were very much influenced by romanticism,

but in these songs he began to experiment with shifting tonal centers and

the other compositional devices that would mark his style. The fourth lied is

Berg’s first completely atonal composition. Although his writing is calculated

and abstract in nature, these works are marked by considerable emotional

meaning and spontaneity.

Webern had done little more than compose student sketches when his

association with Schoenberg began in 1904. Over the next four years, the 

young composer learned invaluable technical skills and received stylistic

guidance that would profoundly affect his creative journey. During these

5
years, all three composers not only began to question tonality, but also wrote 

pieces that are completely atonal. Webern’s early atonal music (such as the 

ten songs of op. 3 and op. 4) is written almost in free-form, without rhythmic

pulse, and rarely with a dynamic marking above piano. His pieces match

the otherworldly and dreamlike mood ofthe poetry, but they are structured

more loosely.

Schoenberg’s works can be divided into four periods, with the second 

period beginning in 1908, at which point he abandoned tonality. He did not

care for the term “atonal” but preferred to call the music “pantonal,” while 

others referred to it as “expressionist.” Although the cycle was not completed 

until 1909, at least five ofthe songs (nos. 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8) in Das Buck der

hangenden Garten were composed in early 1908, making them the definitive

beginning oftrue dissonance, free from any traditional sense of classical

tonality. Schoenberg used George’s ideas and words as inspiration in an 

exploration ofmethods of expression beyond the confines of existing musical language. The songs, like George’s texts, are descriptive and atmospheric,

but they do not attempt to evoke strong emotional responses—only to

express a sense oftime and place through a somewhat veiled perspective.

Program notes by Danielle DeSwert

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Next Week at the National Gallery of Art

Tao Lin, pianist

Haydn, Sonata in C Major

Brahms, Klavierstiicke, op. 119

Chopin, Four Mazurkas, op. 68, and Sonata no. 3 in B Minor, op. 58

Presented in honor ofthe centenary of Paul Mellon’s birth

and performed on the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Steinway

May 9, 2007

Wednesday Afternoon, 12:10 pm

East Building Auditorium

National Gallery Chamber Players String Quartet

Claudia Chudacoff and Teri Lazar, violin

Osman Kivrak, viola

Diana Fish, cello

with

Miceal O’Rourke, pianist

Field, Piano Quintet in Aflat Major and 

Piano Sonata no. 1 in E-flat Major, op. 1, no. 1

Brahms, Quintet in F Minorfor Piano and Strings, op. 34

May 13, 2007

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court