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The Seventy-first Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,954th Concert

Duo Horr/ Sigfridsson

Peter Horr, cellist

Henri Sigfridsson, pianist

June 9, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1829)

Sonata no. lfor Pianoforte and Violoncello in F Major, op. 5, no. 1 (1796)

Adagio sostenuto—Allegro

Rondo. Allegro Vivace

Beethoven

Twelve Variations in F Major on Mozart’s “Ein Madchen oder Weibchen,

op. 66 (1796)

INTERMISSION

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Nine Variations on a Menuet by P. Duport, K. 573 (1789)

Jean-Louis Duport (1749-1819)

Nocturne in B-flat (1818)

Introduction

Variations i-vi

Polacca

Beethoven

Sonata no. jfor Pianoforte and Violoncello in A Major, op. 69 (1808)

Allegro, ma non tanto 

Scherzo

Adagio cantabile—Allegro vivace

The Musicians

PETER HORR

One ofthe most interesting and versatile German musicians ofhis generation, Peter Horr’s early interest in “ancient music” led him to study with 

Heinrich Schiff and Christophe Coin at the Basel Music Academy. Prizewinner ofthe 1989 Scheveningen International Cello Competition, Horr has 

since appeared as cellist in leading concert halls around the world including

Berlin Philharmonic, New York’s Lincoln Center, Lucerne Festival, Ludwigsburg Festival, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, and Suntory Hall in Tokyo.

Appointed professor at the Bern College of Music at the age of twentythree, Peter Horr currently holds a professorship in violoncello at the

Leipzig College of Music and Theatre. Horr is a founding member ofthe

internationally renowned Mozart Piano Quartet, and has been artistic

director ofthe Westfalen Classics International Music Festival since 2006.

As conductor and soloist ofthe Hofkapelle Weimar, he successfully 

recorded three cello concertos by Jean-Louis Duport with the mdg label

for which he was awarded an eceio Classic, the highest German prize in

classical music, in 2010.

HENRI SIGF RIDSSON

Born in Turku, Finland in 1974, Henri Sigfridsson won Second Prize in the 

Zurich Geza Anda Piano competition 2000, impressing not only the jury

led by Vladimir Ashkenazy, but also winning the hearts ofmany members

ofthe public who attended the final concert in the Zurich Tonhalle: he captured with the Geza Anda Audience Prize. In 2005 he won the First Prize at

the Beethoven International Piano Competition in Bonn, where he received

the Audience and Chamber Music prizes as well.

A professor at the Musikhochschule Hanns Eisler in Berlin since 2010,

Sigfridsson’s early teachers include Savy Nordgren at the Turku Conservatory and Erik T. Tawaststjerna at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki. A student

of Lazar Berman at the Franz Liszt Musikhochschule in Weimar, Sigfridsson

completed his studies with Pavel Gililov at the Musikhochschule Koln,

where he earned the highest distinction.

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As a soloist, Sigfridsson has appeared with the leading Finnish orchestras

and numerous orchestras in Europe, including the Belgrade Philharmonic

Orchestra; the Camerata Salzburg under the baton of prestigious conductors

such as Georg Alexander Albrecht, Vladimir Askenazy, Dennis Russel Davies,

Lawrence Foster, Beat Furrer, Alexander Lazarev, and Howard Shelley; the

mdr Orchestra; the Munich Symphony Orchestra; the Orchestre National

de Lille; the St. Petersburg Philharmonic; the Staatskapelle Weimar; the

Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra; and the Zurich Tonhalle Orchestra.

Sigfridsson has made notable debuts at the Bayreuth Music Festival, 

the Ruhr Piano Festival, and Wigmore Hall in London. He performs at

prestigious festivals such as the Augsburg Mozart Week and the festivals of

Davos, Heidelberg, Interlaken, Kissinger Sommer, Krakow Piano, Lockenbaus, Lucerne, St. Petersburg Musical Olympus, Salzburg, and Styriarte.

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Program Notes

While visiting Berlin in 1796 Ludwig van Beethoven composed two landmark sonatas for cello and piano, opus 5. Dating a few years before his

middle, “heroic” period, Beethoven’s first cello sonatas place his youthful

exuberance on full display. Unlike previous sonatas that showcased a solo

string instrument as a supplement to a virtuoso piano part, Beethoven’s

cello writing here is every bit as virtuosic and expressive as the piano parts.

As a result, the sonatas were soon regarded as highly as the violin sonatas of

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who unfortunately never wrote a single sonata

for cello. Mozart had often written for cello within the string ensemble as a

harmonic foundation and a timekeeper, but Beethoven’s sonatas demanded

unprecedented technical skills ranging from agile arpeggios and doublestops to extreme shifts in register. The first ofthese two sonatas, the Sonata

no. 1 in F Major, begins with a slow introduction and evolves into a brisk and

joyous allegro, and a rondo-finale concludes the work. Beethoven balances

the thematic content between cello and piano with a concerto-like dialogue

throughout both movements.

Brothers born eight years apart, Jean-Pierre and Jean-Louis Duport were

the star cello students of Martin Berteau, the founder ofthe French school

of cello playing. Jean-Pierre, the elder Duport, gained notoriety through his

1773 appointment as the top court cellist of Prussian monarch Frederick the

Great in Berlin. There, his responsibilities included playing first cello with

the Royal Opera and in the chamber ensembles ofthe Royal Chapel, as well

as teaching the King’s nephew and future monarch, Friedrich Wilhelm 11.

As director of chamber music in Berlin, Jean-Pierre so impressed Beethoven

during his 1796 visit that he wrote the opus 5 sonatas specifically to perform

with the virtuoso cellist. Jean-Louis Duport, like his brother, composed

several nocturnes for cello with piano and harp accompaniment. The younger

Duport enjoyed a career in Paris, but fled to join his brother in Berlin in

1789 as the French Revolution loomed.

Still relatively early in his compositional career, Beethoven composed

the Variations in F Major on Mozart’s “Ein Madchen oder Weibchen” which

elaborates on a theme from Mozart’s Singspiel opera, Die Zauberflote (1791).

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In the source aria, Papageno, the loveable bird catcher, expresses his wish to

find a wife in three verses while playing his signature keyboard glockenspiel.

The glockenspiel accompaniment becomes more active and virtuosic at each

verse, and Beethoven recognized the aria as an appropriate tune for a set 

ofvariations. Beethoven’s variations represent a marriage of Mozart’s charm

and his own mischievous wit. The lead voice alternates frequently between 

piano and cello, and the style varies between virtuosic, cantabile, and contrapuntal. Ending with an F major coda following a pair of F minor variations,

the work concludes with an uncharacteristically understated pianissimo.

Composed just over a decade after his opus 5 sonatas, Beethoven's

Sonata no. 3 in A Major is the only cello sonata he wrote during his “heroic”

period. The scope ofthis work far exceeds that of opus 5: the first movement

alone presents a greater thematic variety within a sonata-allegro framework, 

alternating between brazen and lyrical themes. The second movement is a

Scherzo, the quicker and rhythmically active genre that Beethoven used to

supplant the typical classical minuet. The Adagio cantabile begins apparently

as a slow movement, but it eventually serves as an extended slow introduction to the finale, a brilliant and exhilarating conclusion in A major.

Program notes by Michael Jacko, concert assistant, National Gallery ofArt

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Upcoming Concerts at the National Gallery of Art

Michael Arnowitt, pianist

Music by Debussy, Rachmaninoff, Satie, and other composers

Presented in honor of Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, 1909-1929:

When Art Danced with Music

Sponsored in part by the Billy Rose Foundation

June 16, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Carpe Diem String Quartet

Music by LeshnofFand other composers

June 23, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Mendelssohn Piano Trio

Music by Mendelssohn and Tchaikovsky

Final concert ofthe season

June 30, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court