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.

Narek Hakhnazaryan, cello 

Noreen Cassidy-Polera, piano

Music by Albeniz, Brahms,

Schumann, and others

February 25, 3:30

ETHEL

Blue Dressfor String Quartet

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

Hear Her Song

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 Cant ando

Music by Bill Douglas, Chick Corea,

Torn Takemitsu, and John Zorn

April 1, 3:30

Heinavanker Ensemble

Featuring ancient Estonian songs 

and folk hymns

Celebrating Michel Sittow: Estonian Painter

at the Courts of Renaissance Europe

April 8, 3:30

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 Keith Anden Achepohl, Capriccio

VII (detail), 1995, National Gallery ofArt,

Washington, Gift ofthe Artist

nga.gov/music

76TH SEASON OF CONCERTS

FEBRUARY 18, 2018 / NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
Trio con Brio Copenhagen, Photo by John Green

2

Program

Trio con Brio Copenhagen

Soo-Jin Hong, violin 

Soo-Kyung Hong, cello 

Jens Elvekjaer, piano

FEBRUARY 18, 2018/3:30

WEST BUILDING, WEST GARDEN COURT

To TravelIs to Live

Edvard Grieg (1843 -1907)

Three Songs by Edvard Grieg,

from the Hjertets Melodier

(Melodies of the Heart), op. 5

“To brune ojne” (Two Brown Eyes)

“Du fatter ej bolgernes gang”

(The Poet’s Heart)

“Jeg elsker dig!” (I love you!)

Transcribed by Trio con Brio

Copenhagen

Niels W. Gade (1817-1890)

Piano Trio in F Major, op. 42

Allegro animato

Allegro molto

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Piano Trio no. 2 in C Minor, op. 66

Allegro energico e con fuoco 

Andante espressivo 

Scherzo: xMolto allegro; 

quasi presto

Finale: Allegro appassionato

Intermission

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Piano Trio in A Minor, op. 50

I. Pezzo elegiaco: Moderate assai;

Allegro giusto

II. Tema con variazioni: Andante

con moto

Variation I

Variation II: Piu mosso

Variation III: Allegro moderate

Variation IV: L’istesso tempo

(Allegro moderate)

Variation V: L’istesso tempo

Variation VI: Tempo di valse

Variation VII: Allegro

moderate

Variation VIII: Fuga

(Allegro moderate)

Variation IX: Andante flebile,

ma non tanto

Variation X: Tempo di mazurka

Variation XI: Moderate

Variazioni finale e coda: Allegro

risoluto e con fuoco

3
The Ensemble

Founded in \denna in 1999 with the concept of pairs coming together, the two

Korean sisters, Soo-Jin and Soo-Kyung Hong, and Jens Elvekjair (married to

Soo-Kyung) have since been exploring the piano trio repertoire with freshness

and curiosity, as well as with respect and reflection. In particular, they have been

gaining a reputation for their creative approach to the core repertoire. “Works

by Beethoven, Schubert, and Brahms are transformed in their hands into the

alive-and-kicking music oftoday,” says Esben Tange, of Danish radio’s DR P2.

Trio con Brio Copenhagen has an intensive worldwide touring schedule

with appearances this season in Washington DC, Los Angeles, Dublin (Ireland),

Hannover and Mannheim (Germany), the Evian Festival (France), Gothenburg

(Sweden), Trondheim (Norway), and Copenhagen (Denmark). In recent years, the

trio has appeared in major concert halls in Europe, the United States, and Asia,

including the Tivoli Concert Hall, the Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, Wigmore

Hall, the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Seoul Arts Center, Tokyo Bunka Kaikan, and

Teatro Olimpico in Vicenza.

Since its inception, the ensemble has won most of the international competitions

for piano trio, namely the ARD (Munich), Vittorio Gui (Florence), and Norway’s

Trondheim Competition. In January 2015, the trio was the first ensemble to receive 

the P2 Artists Prize, one of Denmark’s most prestigious music honors. Other major

awards received include the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson International "Frio Award

(USA) and the Allianz Prize from Germany’s Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Trio con Brio Copenhagen continues to play a central role in Scandinavia’s

vibrant contemporary music scene. Several of Denmark’s most prominent composers,

such as Per Norgard and Bent Sorensen, as well as Swedish composer Sven-David

Sandstrom, have composed and dedicated works to the trio. In 2012, Trio con Brio

Copenhagen was honored to be chosen by Per Norgard as the dedicatee of a work

that premiered in Stockholm for his eightieth birthday. In January 2016, the trio

gave the world premiere of Sorensen’s triple concerto, VIsold della Citta (The Island

in the City), with the Danish National Orchestra.

The trio’s debut CD was unanimously praised by critics: “One of the greatest

performances of chamber music I’ve ever encountered...” (American Record Guide),

and “The performances can compete with the best available...airtight ensemble...

a superb, greatly gifted chamber group” (Gramophone Magazine). The trio’s

Mendelssohn CD was chosen by Classic FM, UK, as Chamber Disc of 2011, and

its latest recording, Phantasmagoria, featuring Danish contemporary music, has

received rave reviews as well.

4

In addition to frequently performing Beethoven’s Concerto for Violin, Cello,

and Piano in C Major, op. 56, with orchestras, the trio premiered Sandstrom’s Six

Piecesfor Piano Trio and Orchestra with the Danish National Symphony Orchestra

in Copenhagen’s Koncerthuset in 2011. The next year, the trio was invited to

perform this work with the Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra for the composer’s

seventieth birthday concert.

As educators, the trio members teach at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen

and give master classes on their international tours, including at Yale University,

Rice University, and the Royal Irish Academy ofMusic. The trio founded the

Copenhagen Chamber Music Festival and serve as its artistic directors.

The trio’s sound benefits from their superb instruments: Soo-Jin Hong plays a

violin built by Andrea Guarneri from the seventeenth century, and Soo-Kyung Hong

plays a Grancino cello. Of note,Jens Elvekjaer is Denmark’s first Steinway Artist. The

ensemble was coached by the Alban Berg Quartet, and by Frans Helmerson, Mihaela

Martin, and Harald Schoneweg at the Cologne University ofMusic. Excellent musical

guidance also came from Ferenc Rados in Budapest.

5
Program Notes

In 1830, Hans Christian Andersen wrote a series of eight love poems titled Hjertets

Melodier (Melodies of the Heart) for Riborg Voigt, the daughter of a Danish

merchant. Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg subsequently chose four of these

poems and composed his own touching Hjertets Melodier in 1864, crediting his

future wife, Miss Nina Hagerup, as his muse. In today’s concert, Trio con Brio

Copenhagen presents its transcription of three of these simple, expressive songs.

Born in Copenhagen, Niels W. Gade began his music career as a concert

violinist with the Royal Danish Orchestra. Through close association with Felix

Mendelssohn, he was invited to teach at the famous Leipzig Conservatory and later

was appointed as its director. Gade was also conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus

Orchestra, and in 1848, returned to Copenhagen to become director of the Copenhagen Musical Society. Widely regarded as Denmark’s most important composer

from the mid-Romantic period, he taught and influenced several Scandinavian

composers, including Edvard Grieg, Carl Nielsen, and Otto Mailing.

Gade’s Piano Trio in F Major, op. 42, was published in 1864, and, according

to the Handbookfor Piano Trio Players by Wilhelm Altmann, it is Gade’s most substantial work for this combination. The two movements featured on today’s program

are described by Altmann as “a fresh-sounding Allegro animato” followed by an

“archetypical scherzo” with the Allegro molto vivace having “pleasing and elegant

middle sections.”

Composed in 1845, Mendelssohn’s Piano Trio no. 2 in C Minor, op. 66, was

the last of his chamber works published during his lifetime. In the middle ofthe

1844-1845 concert season, he was granted a briefsabbatical from his duties as music 

director, administrator, and conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, giving

him an opportunity to concentrate on his writing. In addition to some substantial

work on his oratorio Elijah, he completed the String Quintet in B-flat Major and the

Piano Trio in C Minor. Responding to urgent pleas from the management ofthe

Gewandhaus, he returned to his demanding position the following fall. The resumption of a frantic pace of life was deemed to be a factor in his untimely death in 1847.

One ofMendelssohn’s strongest sonata movements, the opening movement of

today’s trio features a first theme with dramatic rising and falling figures, followed by

a sweeping second theme. The second movement, marked Andante espressivo, is an

extended three-part song without words—one ofMendelssohn’s favorite genres.

The swift, light, and nimble third movement is a prime example of his characteristic

scherzo writing, as the elfin perpetual motion evokes visions of woodland creatures.

The impassioned Finale presents a principal subject with a great leap in the cello, 

balanced by a second theme based on a chorale that has been traced to the Genevan

Psalter of 1551.

6

In October 1880, Tchaikovsky’s patroness, Nadezhda von Meek (1831 -1894),

asked him to compose a piece for the trio ensemble that regularly gave concerts

in her home. Not having written much chamber music, the composer demurred,

insisting that he did not find the piano to be compatible in tone with string instruments, and that he generally favored orchestral writing. When Nikolai Rubinstein

(1835-1881), one of Russia’s most prominent pianists, died the following spring,

Tchaikovsky composed the piano trio in memory of his dear friend and mentor.

The work was completed in February 1882, and three colleagues from the Moscow

Conservatory gave a private performance ofit on March 23, 1882, the first anniversary 

of Rubinstein’s death. After a number of revisions and adjustments, the composition

received its first public performance in October of that year, and it subsequently

became very popular during Tchaikovsky’s lifetime and was performed throughout

Europe and the United States.

A large-scale work set in two sections, the piano trio is marked by a tragic tone.

The mournful first movement (Pezzo elegiaco) is an elegy to Rubenstein and a

moving testimony to the loss Tchaikovsky felt. In expanded sonata-allegro form,

it is warm and passionate, presenting a number of lyrical melodies. The second

movement is a theme and set of variations followed by a finale and coda. The simple 

folklike theme and the eleven variations are said to have been inspired by a day 

Tchaikovsky and Rubinstein spent picnicking in the country, when a group of

peasants appeared and provided music for the afternoon in exchange for food and 

wine. T he grand finale begins as ifit were a twelfth variation, but the mood abruptly

changes as the opening theme from the first movement returns. Of greater length

and difficulty than most piano trios, this work stands out in the chamber music 

repertoire as a touchstone of grandeur and brilliance.

Program notesfor the Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky trios by Danielle DeSwert Hahn,

from the National Gallery ofArt’s 2,977th concert, fane 50, 2017.

7