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-sixth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,655th Concert

Jeni Slotchiver, pianist

January 20, 2008

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)

Bachianas brasileiras no. 4 (1930-1941)

Preludio (Introdu^ao) (Prelude: Introduction)

Coral (Canto do sertao) (Chorale: Song ofthe Jungle) 

Aria (Cantiga) (Aria: Song)

Dansa (Miudinho) (Dance: Samba Step)

Francisco Mignone (1897-1986)

Sonatina no. 4 (1949)

Allegretto

Allegro con umore

Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000)

Las Ninas (The Girls) (1951)

Bailecito (Dance) (1941)

Gato (Cat) (1940)

Camargo Guarnieri (1907-1993)

Dansa negra (1948)

Frutuoso de Lima Viana (1896-1976)

Coiia-Jaca (Brazilian Folk Dance) (1932)

INTERMISSION
Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924)

Indian Diary: Book One (Four Studies on Motifs ofthe

Native American Indians) (1915)

He-Hea Katzina Song (Hopi)

Song ofVictory (Cheyenne)

Blue Bird Song (Pima) and Corn-Grinding Song (Lagunas) 

Passamquoddy Dance Song (Wabanakis) and

He-Hea Katzina Song (Hopi)

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912)

Deep River (1904)

R. Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943)

Juba (1913)

Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869)

Souvenir de Puerto Rico, op. 31 (1857)

Gottschalk

L’Union (1862)

The Musician

Pianist Jeni Slotchiver began her formal musical studies at an early age. A

recipient ofseveral scholarships, she attended the Interlochen Arts Academy 

and the Aspen Music Festival, before earning her bachelor and master of

music degrees in piano performance at Indiana University. A frequent

recipient ofperformance grants from the New York Public Libraries and the

Smithsonian Institution, she made her solo recital debut at Carnegie Hall in

1991 as the first prize winner ofthe Artists International Young Musicians

Auditions. A champion oftwentieth-century composers, Slotchiver is dedicated to the presentation ofnew and rarely-heard music, and has given the

world premieres ofmany American works. She is active as a recitalist, soloist, 

lecturer, and competition judge and is currently writing for Piano magazine

and participating in its Busoni Symposium in London. In 1997 she presented

an all-Busoni performance at Merkin Concert Hall, the first ofits kind in New

York City in thirty years.

Slotchiver has received critical acclaim in Asia, England, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Russia, and Spain. She has been featured

on npr’s Performance Today, wkcr’s Live Constructions, wnyc’s The Fishko

Files, wpln’s Live in Studio C, and wqxr’s Refectionsfrom the Keyboard with

David Dubai. This year, in addition to her touring schedule, she is working

on a collection of essays on the life and work of Ferruccio Busoni, as well

as the release ofseveral new cds including the third volume of Busoni

the Visionary.

A regular guest recitalist and concerto soloist at The Americas Society

in New York City, the City Universities of New York, Dartmouth College,

Florida International University, New Jersey City University, and the

Presidential Library in California, Slotchiver plays her second recital at

the National Gallery this evening. She was the 2007 J. Donald Feagan

Visiting Artist at the University ofTulsa and member ofthe visiting-artist

faculty at Tennessee State University. She appears at the gallery by arrangement with Carl Weinberg of New York City.

5
Program Notes

Heitor Villa-Lobos is undoubtedly the most famous ofthe twentieth-century

Latin- American composers. Initially self-taught, Villa-Lobos toured Europe 

in the 1920s where he met many ofthe leading composers. In 1930 he was

appointed director ofBrazil’s National Music Academy and two years later

given charge ofhis country’s music education. In 1942 Villa-Lobos founded

the Conservatorio Nacional de Canto Orfeonico, with the aim ofproviding

qualified music teachers for Brazilian schools. Villa-Lobos’ music derives

strong coloring from Brazilian folk elements. It is richly imbued with Indian

and African influences and has stylistic similarities to European impressionism. Essentially romantic in mood, his compositions are ethnically diverse

in inspiration and are marked by polyrhythms and instrumental virtuosity.

Francisco Mignone was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil, ofItalian parents.

He studied flute, piano, and composition at the Conservatorio Dramatico

e Musical in Sao Paulo. Mignone is considered, along with Villa-Lobos and

Oscar Lorenzo Fernandez (1897-1948), one of Brazil’s most important

composers. Mignone was prolific, composing more than 700 works. He was 

a brilliant pianist and his craft is characterized by strong melodic intensity

and rhythmic precision. His compositions reflect the evolution of Brazilian

popular music from urban melodies ofthe Brazilian colonial period to the

more stylized and refined forms ofthe first halfofthe twentieth century.

Carlos Guastavino was born in Santa Fe, Argentina, and studied at the

National Conservatory in Buenos Aires. At the invitation ofthe bbc, he

performed his piano works in London in 1947,1948, and 1949. During these

years, the bbc Symphony Orchestra premiered his Tres Romances argentinos.

Later, Guastavino toured throughout Europe, the former Soviet Union,

and China, performing his pieces for voice and piano. Guastavino’s style,

inherited from the luminaries ofnineteenth-century Argentinian nationalist

composers, was conservative, tonal, and lusciously romantic. His conscious

isolation from the modernist and avant-garde movements, coupled with the

overtly nationalist content of his songs, made him a model for Argentine

popular and folk musicians ofthe 1960s.

6

Composer, conductor, and pedagogue Camargo Guarnieri occupies a

central position in the context of Brazilian music. His influence on several 

generations ofnationalist composers is widely acknowledged and can hardly

be overestimated. The universal appeal of his style—felt immediately upon

hearing his work—is primarily a result of his highly personal blending of

traditional Brazilian melodies and rhythms, but his musical language has

a broad cosmopolitan scope. Guarnieri’s interest in Brazilian folklore was 

inspired by Mario de Andrade (1893-1945), the great Brazilian scholar and

critic who revitalized Brazilian cultural traditions. Andrade nurtured the

career ofthe young Guarnieri, whom he saw as a defender against the

diluting influence of European academicism. In 1947 Guarnieri conducted

his First Symphony with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and he guest

conducted other great European and American orchestras as well. In i960

he was appointed director ofthe Conservatorio Dramatico e Musical and he

continued to take a leading role in orchestral and choral organizations in

Brazil until his death in 1993.

Frutuoso de Lima Viana was born in 1896 in Itajuba, Minas Gerais,

Brazil. He began his musical studies at a young age with his parents, who

were both ardent music lovers, and later studied at the National Institute

of Music in Rio de Janeiro with Enrique Osvald. A young prodigy, he was

invited to guest-conduct orchestras in Brazil and abroad when he was only 

seventeen. After meeting Villa-Lobos, Viana became interested in composition and studied briefly in Europe. Viana was also a professor of piano at 

the Conservatorio Dramatico e Musical and choral director ofthe Paulistano

Choral in Sao Paulo. In 1942 he settled in Rio de Janeiro, where he taught,

performed, and composed until his death in 1976.

Ferruccio Busoni was bom in Empoli, Italy, and his prodigious natural

talent as an instrumentalist and composer quickly earned him a reputation as a

wonder child. As he grew to adulthood, he became the most acclaimed virtuoso 

pianist ofhis time. Although his career as an interpreter and performing artist

overshadowed his life as a composer, Busoni never doubted that composition

was his primary artistic expression. He was immensely prolific, composing

7
more than two hundred works before the age oftwenty, and referred to composition as “the ultimate object ofmy existence.” Busoni strove to define a

“universal music” that would communicate beyond all ethnic, geographic, 

political, and spiritual boundaries. This quest led him to ancient melodies as

a pure form ofmusic that could convey what he felt was its essence. While in

New York in 1910, Busoni reunited with a former student, Natalie Curtis. Curtis

presented him with a recently published edition ofher ethnomusicological

work, The Indians' Book. Haunted by the Indian melodies he found there, he

composed an Indian Fantasy for piano and orchestra in 1913 and Indian Diary:

Book One two years later. In his notes on these works, he referred to the Indian

motifs as perfect examples of “absolute melody [that renders] a state ofmind

[that] can exist independent of a text as expression.”

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was bom in London to an English mother and

a Sierra Leonian father. In 1890 he entered the Royal Academy of Music as a

violin student. Frequent public performances ofhis compositions began in

1891, after Vincent Novello published his anthem In thee, O Lord. In 1904 

Coleridge-Taylor undertook a concert tour ofthe United States, which

increased his exposure to music ofAfrican origin. He met the AfricanAmerican poet Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) and set several of his

poems to music. Throughout the rest ofhis short life (he died in 1912 at 

age thirty-seven), Coleridge-Taylor devoted his efforts to reestablishing the

dignity ofhis African ancestors. He composed African Dances for violin

and a number of chamber works based on African themes. Despite being

named after the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), he set only one

Coleridge poem, The Legend ofKuhla Khan, to music. Coleridge-Taylor made

two additional visits to the United States, each time receiving great acclaim.

American journalists ofthe time dubbed him “the Black Mahler.”

R. Nathaniel Dett was born in Drummondsville, Quebec, near Niagara

Falls. A composer, concert pianist, and conductor who devoted himselfto 

the lifelong pursuit ofmusic education, he was the first person ofAfrican

descent to receive the bachelor ofmusic degree from the Oberlin College 

Conservatory of Music, where he majored in both piano and composition.

He continued his studies with Nadia Boulanger in Paris. An extremely

learned artist, Dett attended many prominent universities, among them

Eastman, Columbia, Harvard, and Northwestern. Both Howard University

and Oberlin College awarded him honorary doctorate degrees. Dett’s most

popular multi-movement work is a suite, In the Bottoms, which includes

Juha, a tap dance. The suite was published and premiered in Chicago in

1913 by Fanny Bloomfield-Zeisler and popularized by Percy Grainger. Juha

is dedicated to the memory ofWilliam Henry Lane, who is considered

the father ofmodem tap dancing and who used the name Juba as his

stage name.

Louis Moreau Gottschalk occupies a unique place in American history. 

Born in New Orleans of English and French-Creole parentage, he was the

first American to achieve an international reputation as a virtuoso pianist

and composer. At the forefront ofAmerican musical nationalism in the

nineteenth century, Gottschalk incorporated the indigenous rhythms and

melodies of North and South America into his piano pieces, in particular

Louisiana plantation tunes and the rhythms of cakewalk, habanera, rumba,

and tango. His Souvenir ofPuerto Rico is remarkable for its unsentimental,

adventurous nationalism and modern pianistic effects. Despite Gottschalk’s

New Orleans roots and devotion to the culture ofthe American South, he

was an abolitionist and a unionist. His montage ofunion civil war melodies,

L'Union, was dedicated to General George B. McClellan. He was invited to 

perform it in 1864 at a memorial service shortly after the assassination of

President Lincoln. In his memoirs, the composer mentions performing this

work on carefully selected occasions only; to do otherwise would have 

endangered his safety.

Gottschalk served as a model for American composer Richard Bales,

former head ofthe National Gallery’s music programs from 1943 to 1985.

Bales regularly included works by Gottschalk in the annual American music

festivals at the Gallery, beginning with the third festival in 1946, and based

many ofhis own compositions on traditional American tunes. Bales’ most

notable works ofthis type are the third and fourth ofhis National Gallery

Suites, American Design (1957) and American Chronicle (1965); and his cantatas

The Confederacy (1953), The Republic (1955), and The Union (1956).

9
Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

Central Bucks High School-West Chamber Choir

Joseph Ohrt, conductor

Music by Cage, Caldwell, Gjeilo, Ohrt, and Samson

January 27, 2008

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court