New York University, he supplemented his income by playing in loud

jazz bands, under circumstances where the piano had to be pounded in

order to be heard. Gould composed the Boogie Woogie Etude in the

blues style as it was realized by those bands in the 1930s, and his only

direction to the player is to usea“steely and hard” technique throughout 

the performance. The composer’s classical training asa pianist is evident 

in the enormous digital difficulties and pitiless rhythmic propulsion of

the work. Rag-Blues-Rag also emulates an established jazz genre. It isa

stylized version of the American popular music known as ragtime that 

flourished between 1890 and 1920, fused with the 1930s blues. The

pairing of these two unlikely musical mates takes place through the

employment of the classical song format (ABA). The performance of

this work calls fora formidable technique as well asa complete 

understanding of and appreciation for two of America

’s popular art

forms.

About The Fragile Vessel(Images at an Installation), composer Philip

Munger writes:“The work’s style pays homage to Dr. Osinchuk’s

teacher, Nadia Boulanger, and to Boulanger

’s teacher, Gabriel Faure, in

addition to being an intended show piece for Juliana’s strengths asa

performer. The music evokes [a work of art by] Karen Stahlecker in

a

very personal way. Regarding her installation, The Fragile Vessel, Karen

has said:‘Our world is fragile. We must let wisdom and concern replace 

greed and myopic view. As we destroy the earth, we destroy ourselves.’

My [own] path has left the bodies of hundreds of marine mammals and

millions of sea creatures behind. Having worked long at sea asa

commercial fisherman, in various aspects of heavy industry, and on

projects which have developed wildernesses into basic tourist venues,

I

see darker hues in the pigments of Karen’s globe than do many others.

Where Karen has approached her environmentalism through deep and

constant respect,

I got mine only after tiring of stomping on nature. The

triumphal ending of the piece is the first such coda

I have placed on an

environmentalist statement. It calls on the listener to have

a positive 

vision of the outcome for humankind’s part in the future of our fragile 

vessel.”

“The piano music of Gabriel Faure isa country from which no soul

returns unmoved, particularly if one is allowed to savor the vicarious and

sensuous warmth of his Nocturnes'’'’ (Heuwell Tircuit, in program notes

for the CD, Fourteen Nocturnes). Although Faure was an admirer of

Chopin, his nocturnes only marginally resemble those by which Chopin 

defined this genre. Absent are the bewitching moonlit nights and their 

effect on the romantic soul. In their place, Faure speaks poetically, 

making each nocturne

“a truly intimate poem, expressing his most

profound secrets and passions

” (Evelyne Crochet). The Nocturne inB

Minor, Op. 97, isa perfect example of Faure’s poetry in music. An

opening theme of great lyrical charm gives way to

a contrasting section

in the key ofB major that is prefaced by“a phrase of exquisite 

purity...[that] bursts intoa resonant chorale” (Crochet).

If the title Song, or Tied, could be applied to any of the five

impromptus of Faure, it would be the Impromptu No.

3 in A-flat Major,

Op. 34. It is trulya song without words.A simple yet effective melody,

played by the right hand, is the mainstay of this delightful gem. It is

followed by passage in

a slower tempo, marked molto meno mosso,

giving heightened lyricism to one of Faure

’s unique compositions.

Francis Poulenc

’s harmonic scheme, while touching on those of such

composers as Chabrier, Stravinsky, and Prokofiev, remains distinctly his

own. According to musicologist Geoffrey Bush, the influence of Chopin 

can be heard in the “blurred, almost Chopinesque figuration of the

Intermezzo in A-flat Major

.”

Saint-Saens wrote his Allegro appassionato, Op. 70, for the piano

competitions held at the Paris Conservatoire. In the spirit of

a

competition, it is

a technically brilliant composition that makes great 

demands on the performer, but is by no means

a perfunctory contest 

etude. Although Saint-Saens arranged this work with an orchestral 

accompaniment, the solo version lacks nothing in the way of wit,

vitality, or iridescence.

Program notes by Elmer Booze

Notes on the works by Kosenko and Munger by Juliana Osinchuk 

and Philip Munger, adapted and edited by Elmer Booze

The Fifty-ninth Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

sitsss-

-JiLa

2371st Concert

JULIANA OSINCHUK, pianist

Sunday Evening,4 February 2001

Seven O'clock

West Building, West Garden Court 

Admission free
Muzio Clementi

(1752-1832)

Viktor Kosenko

(1896-1938)

Morton Gould

(1913-1996)

Philip Munger 

(b. 1946)

Gabriel Faure

(1845-1924)

PROGRAM

Sonata in B-flat Major, Op. 24, No. 2

(Originally published as Op. 41, No. 2)

Allegro con brio

Andante; quasi allegretto 

Rondo: Allegro assai

Francis Poulenc Intermezzo in A-flat Major

(1899-1963) (1943)

Camille Saint-Saens Allegro appassionato in C-sharp Minor

(1835-1921) (1874)

Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 15

Washington premiere performance

Rag-Blues-Rag 

Boogie Woogie Etude

INTERMISSION

The Fragile Vessel, Op. 36

(Images at an Installation) (1993)

Washington premiere performance

Nocturne No. 9 in B Minor 

Op. 97 (1908)

Impromptu No. 3 in A-flat Major 

Op. 34 (1883)

Pianist Juliana Osinchuk, who has been described by The New York

Times as having “superior technique, discipline, and talent,” began her

piano studies at age four with her mother. At age eleven, after making

her formal debut, she became a pupil of Nadia Boulanger in Paris. She

continued her studies at the Conservatoire de Musique in Paris, at

Tanglewood, and at the Juilliard School of Music, where she received 

the bachelor and master of music degrees and the doctorate in musical

arts. Her teachers have included Rosina Lhevinne, Nadia Reisenberg, 

Louis Talma, Daniel Pollack, Herbert Rogers, and Alexander Eydelman.

Her formal professional debut took place at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully

Hall. She was subsequently profiled in the magazine Musical America as

a “young artist to watch.”

Juliana Osinchuk has performed nationally and internationally in the

major concert halls of New York, Washington, London, Amsterdam, and

Salzburg. She records for the Chaconne Records label and has just

completed a CD entitled Tchaikovsky: Piano Music. Three additional 

compact discs are being planned, one of which will include world

premiere recordings of the piano music of Viktor Kosenko. Having 

served on the faculty of Hunter College of New York City and as

associate professor at the State University of New York at Purchase, 

Juliana Osinchuk currently resides in Anchorage, Alaska, where she

concertizes and teaches privately.

dementi’s Sonata in B-flat Major appears in Stephen Storace’s (1762—

1796) Collection of Harpsichord Music (1788-1790) as Op. 41, No. 2.

Mozart, who heard the premiere of this work, was harshly critical of

dementi’s performance, which took place before Emperor Joseph II of

Austria in 1781. The occasion was the famed contest between the two

composer-pianists. In a letter to his father following the contest, Mozart

mercilessly wrote that Clementi was a “charlatan” and “mechanical.”

Writer Lorenzo Bianconi, however, in his article on Mozart (translated 

from the French by Helen Baker), maintains that Mozart had more to say

after hearing the Clementi sonata: “There is a pleasant banality in the

Andante, and certain flowery qualities in the first and last movements.”

More favorable listeners might note that the sonata has a decidedly

symphonic, even orchestral sonority, and that the initial theme appears to

have been appropriated by Mozart for the overture to The Magic Flute,

composed in 1791, some ten years after the competition.

Because of his heavy concert schedule, Viktor Kosenko took three

years to complete his Piano Sonata No. 3 in B Minor, Op. 15, a singlemovement work marked Allegro moderato. Kosenko’s works of the

1920s, which include this sonata, are highly refined, optimistic, and,

above all, full of romanticism. He uses many major tonalities, modes,

and long melodic lines. In addition, the influence of the harmonies and

melodic writing of Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915) is evident. The work

follows the sonata-allegro form and begins with a short motif in the bass

line before the melancholic first theme is introduced. A second theme, a

short melody, is transformed into a brief cadenza, which is followed by a

repeat of the first theme. A full-bodied climax introduces the

development section. Here, the haunting second theme that was

presented in the opening section (exposition) is freely treated, followed 

by a return of the principal theme (recapitulation). A coda based upon

the principal theme closes the work.

Having begun his career as a child prodigy pianist, Morton Gould went

on to become an exceptionally skillful and adaptable composer as well as

a conductor. While attending the composition class of Vincent Jones at