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

2,660th Concert

National Gallery Chamber Players Piano Trio

Luke Wedge, violin

Benjamin R. Wensel, cello

Danielle DeSwert, piano

February 24, 2008

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)

Piano Trio in E Minor, op. 90 (“Dumky”)

Lento maestoso; allegro vivace (quasi doppio movimento);

tempo primo; allegro molto

Poco adagio; vivace non troppo

Andante; vivace non troppo; andante; allegretto

Andante moderato (quasi tempo di marcia); allegretto scherzando;

meno mosso; allegro; moderato

Allegro

Lento maestoso; vivace (quasi doppio movimento); lento; vivace

Paul Schoenfield (b. 1947)

Cafe Music (1985)

Allegro

Andante Moderato: Rubato 

Presto

INTERMISSION

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Piano Trio (1914)

Modere

Pantoum

Passacaille: Tres large

Finale: Anime

The Musicians

LUKE WEDGE

Luke Wedge received a master ofmusic degree in violin performance from

Northwestern University and a bachelor of arts degree in English Literature

from the University of Kansas. His principal instructors included David

Perry, Gerardo Ribeiro, and Ben Sayevich. Wedge has made solo and recital

appearances in Chicago; Lawrence, Kansas; and Washington, dc. He is an

experienced orchestral musician and has been engaged by the National

Gallery Orchestra, the National Symphony, and the Ravinia Festival, among

others. He is a member ofthe United States Air Force Strings and, since

2003, has been a member ofthe Covington String Quartet, which was the

quartet-in-residence at Gettysburg College in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

from 2003 to 2006.

BENJAMIN R. WENSEL

Benjamin R. Wensel holds degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music

and Eastman School of Music. He has performed in seminars and master

classes for members ofthe Cleveland, Guaneri, Juilliard, Miami, and Ying

quartets; studied chamber music with Peter Salaff and members ofthe

Audubon and Cavani Quartets; and participated in solo master classes with

Clemens Michael Hagen, Steven Isserlis, and Michel Strauss.

Wensel has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra, the

ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, and

the Syracuse Symphony as well as with many fine local ensembles. A founding member ofthe Tarab Cello Ensemble, Wensel performed in the premieres

ofmore than twenty new works written by established and emerging American composers, and participated in the ensemble’s residencies at Princeton

University, Stetson University, and the University of South Florida. He taught

chamber music and maintained a studio at the Hochstein School of Music in

Rochester, New York, where he was the cellist ofthe Hochstein String Quartet.

3
Currently a member ofthe faculty at the Washington Conservatory, Wensel 

maintains a private studio in Arlington, Virginia, and plays with the newly 

formed Messaien Quartet as well as the National Gallery Chamber Players 

Piano Trio. He can be heard on recordings produced by the Bridge, Harmonia

Mundi, and Summit record labels.

DANIELLE DESWERT

Brussels-born pianist Danielle DeSwert is a freelance collaborative pianist

and coach, and the music program specialist at the National Gallery ofArt.

She has worked as a pianist and coach with the Ash Lawn Highland Opera

Festival, Chautauqua Opera, Indianapolis Opera, Kentucky Opera, the New 

Orleans Opera Association, Portland (Oregon) Opera, the San Francisco

Opera Center, Sarasota Opera, and the Washington National Opera. From

2004 to 2006 she was the principal repetiteur with the Baltimore Opera

Company and Washington Concert Opera.

She performs regularly in chamber music and voice recitals, including

performances at the Arts Club of Washington, the Jewish Community Center

ofGreater Washington, the Kennedy Center, the Mexican Institute ofCulture,

the National Gallery, the Russian Embassy, and the White House. She is

principal pianist with the Inscape Chamber Music Project. She holds a master

ofmusic degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she

studied with Martin Katz, and a bachelor ofmusic degree from the University

ofCalifornia, Santa Barbara. She also studied with Warren Jones and Amne

Epperson at the Music Academy ofthe West and was an apprentice coach 

with the Washington Opera, working with Placido Domingo.

I

4

Program notes

Antonin Dvorak began to compose his Piano Trio, opus 90, in 1890, at

which point he had achieved a great deal ofinternational fame and had

developed a distinctive and personal style of composition. He saw it as

his mission to amalgamate regional music from his native Bohemia with

the classical traditions he had grown to love as a student. The Piano Trio

in E Minor represents the perfect melding ofthe two traditions—folk

art and chamber music.

“The Dumky Trio” is the most famous of Dvorak’s four piano trios and one

ofthe most familiar in the repertoire. Abandoning the traditional four-movement formal scheme, Dvorak made the unorthodox and unique choice to

set six dumky in succession. A Ukranian term, dumka literally means “melancholy” or “lament,” and describes vocal or instrumental works with a brooding

quality, which can vary in tempo. Formally the dumka is simple—typically

binary, occasionally ternary—and in the case ofthis work, each section is in a

different key. Dvorak creates a unified work out ofthese six different folklike

themes by interweaving different moods, and alternating in each movement

between somber and light-hearted moments.

If “The Dumky Trio” represents the height ofCzech nationalism in a classical form, Cafe Music could be the epitome ofAmerican style in chamber music.

Paul Schoenfield brilliandy combines all facets ofpopular idioms—blues, 

Broadway melodies, ragtime, and spirituals—into a neat, classically modeled

piece in three movements. In the composer’s words: “The idea to compose

Cafe Music first came to me in 1985 after sitting in one night for the pianist of

the house trio at Murray’s Restaurant in Minneapolis. My intention was to

write a kind ofhigh-class [dinner] music which could be played at a restaurant,

but might also (just barely) find its way into a concert hall.”

Detroit-born composer Paul Schoenfield began his musical studies at 

age six, and wrote his first composition the following year. He studied piano

and had an active performing career, but in recent years he has concentrated

on composing. An avid scholar of Hebrew studies, his interest in folk music

blends well with exploration ofhis Jewish roots. He currently lives in Israel.

5
By the time Maurice Ravel applied himselfto writing a piano trio in an

intense five weeks at the end ofthe summer of 1914, he had been contemplating doing so for eight years. World War I had broken out in Europe,

and Ravel was eager to enlist. (To his disappointment, he was rejected, due

to his small stature, but he was allowed to become an orderly, driving an

ambulance.) His one and only piano trio is considered to be his finest work

of chamber music. Despite the fact that he professed not to find piano and

strings compatible partners, Ravel achieved a stunning synthesis oftonality, 

form, and style, requiring virtuosity from all three players and exploiting

each instrument to its fullest.

The first movement (Modere) is written in an unusual off-kilter 3-2-3

meter, which swings gracefully throughout it. Based on Basque themes,

which Ravel had intended to make into a piano concerto, this movement

is in sonata form. The second movement, Pantoum, is from a Malayan form

of verse, panttun, in which the second and fourth lines of one quatrain

are repeated in the next quatrain as the first and third lines. Ravel adhered

strictly to this form and imposed an additional formal requirement: superimposing one theme upon the other in the center ofthe movement.

A passacaglia follows, giving the listener a moment of contemplation

following the whirling scherzo ofthe second movement. Using the baroque

variation form, Ravel gives the theme to the solo piano in the first eight bars,

builds through the successive variations to a climax, and then ebbs away

into a quiet close played again by the piano alone. The finale breaks in with

a high tremolo in the strings, and continues at a frenetic pace, including

trumpetlike calls in the piano, until the dramatic conclusion.

Program notes by Danielle DeSwert

6

Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

Celeste Headlee, soprano, and Danielle DeSwert, pianist

Music by William Grant Still

February 27, 2008

Wednesday Afternoon, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Washington National Cathedral Choir of Men and Girls

Music by Allegri, Domenico Scarlatti, and Tallis

March 2, 2008

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court