Enhanced by an elaborate countersubject, it builds to a forceful climax.

The end of this fugue presents an especially satisfying moment among

the works of Mozart’s last year. The first piano-four-hand arrangement 

of the Fantasia, K. 608, was created in 1799 by Johann Gallus

Mederitsch (1752-1835). This version became an inspiration to other

composers from Haydn to Busoni, whose two-piano arrangement was, in

his own words, “inspired by something eternally valid—the endless

beauty of Mozartean music.”

Described in Music for the Piano (Friskin and Freundlich), as

“music of easy effectiveness and charm,” Anton Arensky’s Suite No. 1,

Op. 15, is typical Russian romantic music of the nineteenth century. The

writing is idiomatic for the piano, with melodic inventiveness 

underscored by colorful harmonies. The seductive quality of the second

movement (Valse) alone has made the work memorable and has retained

for the entire suite a place in contemporary two-piano recital programs.

It proves a worthwhile effort for those intrepid performers who can

negotiate the technical difficulties inherent in the score. Each movement 

has elaborate ornamentation that is dazzling in effect and delightful to

the listeners. The third movement (Polonaise) is a stately procession, full

of pageantry, that brilliantly complements the majestic milieu of the

nineteenth-century Russian imperial court. A coda of resounding 

brilliance brings the suite to a thrilling close.

Program notes by Elmer Booze

For the convenience ofconcertgoers

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:30 p.m.

The use of cameras or recording equipment during

the performance is not allowed.

The Sixty-second Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2494th Concert

MISHA and CIPA DICHTER, duo-pianists

Sunday Evening, 25 April 2004

Seven O’clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
Program

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Sonata No. 16 in C Major for Two Pianos

(1756-1791) K. 545 (1788)

arranged for two pianos four hands

by Edvard Grieg (1880)

Allegro

Andante

Rondo: Allegretto Grazioso

Six Etudes for Pedal-Piano 

in the Form of a Canon

Op. 56 (1845)

arranged for two pianos four hands

by Claude Debussy (1903)

1. Pas trop vite 4. Espressivo

2. Avec beaucoup d’expression 5. Pas trop vite

3. Andantino 6. Adagio

Robert Schumann 

(1810-1856)

Franz Liszt Concerto pathetique for Two Pianos

(1811-1886) S. 258 (1856)

Allegro energico

Andante sostenuto

Allegro agitato assai

Intermission

Fantasia in F Minor for a Musical Clockwork

K. 608 (1791)

arranged for two pianos four hands

by Ferruccio Busoni (1943)

Allegro

Andante

Allegro

Romance

Valse

Polonaise

The Musicians

Pianists Misha and Cipa Dichter, who met at the Juilliard School of

Music when they were students of the legendary Rosina Lhevinne, made

their first joint appearance at the Hollywood Bowl in 1972, four years

after their marriage. Since then, the Dichters have performed in recital

and with major orchestras throughout the world and have brought to the

concert stage many previously neglected works of the two-piano and

piano-four-hand repertoires. The duo recently made their first recording

together (works by Schubert and Dvorak, released by PianoDisc), and

this fall they will record Mozart’s complete works for two pianos and

piano four hands for the Musical Heritage Society. Residents ot New

York City and the parents of two grown sons, the Dichters appear at the

National Gallery by arrangement with ICM Artists, Ltd., of New York

City.

Now in the fourth decade of a highly distinguished international

career, Misha Dichter traces his musical heritage to two great pianistic

traditions of the twentieth century: the Russian romantic school, as

personified by Rosina Lhevinne, and the German classical approach,

passed on to him by Aube Tzerko, a pupil of Arthur Schnabel. His solo

Suite No. 1 in F Major for Two Pianos

Op. 15 (1888)

Mozart

Anton Arensky

(1861-1906)
performances and recordings of music ranging from Mozart to

Stravinsky have made him a favorite of audiences around the world.

Born in 1945 in Shanghai, the refuge of his Polish parents at the

outbreak of World War II, Dichter came to Los Angeles with his family

at the age of two and began his piano studies a few years later. While

still a student at Juilliard, he launched his international career with a

stunning triumph at the 1966 Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow.

Cipa Dichter was born in Brazil of Polish-Russian parents and

had her first piano lessons at the age of six. She made her professional 

debut at sixteen with the Symphony Orchestra of Brazil and came to the

United States to study at the Juilliard School of Music. She is very much

involved in the S.L.E. Foundation’s Women’s Leadership Council, a

women’s health initiative with a mission to advocate increased research

into lupus.

Program Notes

Written in 1788, Mozart’s Sonata No. 16 in C Major, K. 545, was

inscribed with the subtitle, Eine kleine Klavier-Sonata fur Anfanger (A

Petite Sonata for Beginners). The sonata is today generally referred to as

the Student Sonata. The catchy tune and pearly scales of its first

movement (Allegro) result in a pedagogical gem that is taught to piano

students worldwide and continues to be performed by concert artists. The

episodic slow movement (Andante), in the key of G major, is a delicate 

song with a trio. The effervescent finale (Rondo: Allegretto grazioso),

the shortest of the three movements, takes less than two minutes to

perform. The two-piano version on tonight’s program consists of

Mozart’s original work plus an accompaniment for a second piano that

was added by Edvard Grieg (1843-1907).

Schumann wrote Six Etudes for Pedal-Piano in the Form of a

Canon, Op. 56, and Four Sketches for Pedal-Piano, Op. 58, during his

tenure as professor of piano and composition at the Leipzig

Conservatory of Music. The inspiration for these compositions was a

piano with a pedal keyboard that had been specially built for the school

as a practice instrument for organ students. Debussy’s fascination with

the Six Etudes, Op. 56, led him to arrange them for two pianos four

hands in 1903.

Rarely heard on the concert stage, Liszt’s Concerto pathetique

for Two Pianos dates from 1856 and was his third and final version of

this work. He had initially written it in 1849, as Grand solo de concert,

for a piano competition at the Paris Conservatory. During the intervening

years he had made numerous revisions to the work, resulting in a version

for piano and orchestra entitled Grosses Konzertsolo. This second

version included a slow movement, but it was evidently not satisfactory

for Liszt, since he never arranged to have it performed or published.

Even though the two-piano version has only one movement, it contains

three sub-movements that are quite distinct. In this respect it resembles

Liszt’s one-movement masterpiece, the B Minor Sonata. Both works are

also monothematic. The Concerto pathetique is built upon a

metamorphic central theme that develops as the composition unfolds. It

is an imposing composition, well endowed with Liszt’s famous virtuoso

tricks, such as double octaves, mesmerizing scale passages, and

declamatory chords. With such pyrotechnics in evidence, the question

posed by Deryck Cooke in The Language ofMusic is appropriate: “Why

did Liszt choose the title Concerto pathetique, when the work ends in

such a blaze of triumph?”

Mozart’s Fantasia in F Minor for a Musical Clockwork, K. 608,

is the second of three pieces he purportedly wrote for a mechanical clock

and pipe organ owned by Josef Count Deym Stritetz (1750-1804), a

Bohemian nobleman. The device was located in the count’s wax

museum. Alfred Einstein, in Mozart: His Character and His Work,

argues that the reference to “Count Deym” in the score is not absolute

proof of such a commission, and the work transcends any such mundane

purpose. It has three movements, marked Allegro, Andante, and Allegro.

These tempo markings are the reverse of those in the Fantasia, K. 594,

the first of the set, in which they read Adagio, Allegro, and Adagio. The

contrast thus provided supports the theory that Mozart expected the

fantasias to be performed one after another by a musical clock. K. 608,

however, stands out prominently from K. 594, because it concludes with

a fugue of such dexterous counterpoint that it has been described as

Mozart’s most cogent fugue. The fugal subject is first presented in the

opening movement and returns in the final movement in enlarged form.