him into some precarious situations, from which he has to be ex

­

tricated. About the suite’s opening selection, Morning, Grieg

wrote:“It isa morning mood in whichI imagine the sun breaking

through the clouds at the firstforte." Ase’s Death portrays Peer’s

mother lying on her deathbed, as Peer, having deserted her for

adventures in America, returns and whimsically avows that he is

motoring her up to the gates of heaven. The insistent, tragic

plaint, characterized by muted strings, ultimately fades with the

chilling finality ofAse’s last mortal breath. Anitra’sDance precedes

the elopement of Peer and Anitra, who, with all of her seductive­

ness, dashes offwith his stolenjewels. The setting forMorningmd

Anitra’sDance, curiously, is Africa, rather than Norway. After break­

ing into the Mountain King’s domain, where all the denizens are

trolls, Peer is pursued by the king’s daughter, who has fallen in love

with him, but he rejects her asa marriage partner because of her

ugliness. Making fun of her dance for him, in addition to the mu­

sic, Peer angers the populace and is chased out of the kingdom to

the music ofIntheHalloftheMountainKing, narrowly escaping death.

Jewish-born Felix Mendelssohn was baptized into the Protes

­

tant faith in 1816, at his parents’ request. In 1830, when the

composer was twenty-one years old, protestants in Germany pre­

pared to celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of the

Augsburg Confession, drawn up by the first generation of

Lutherans in 1530. Apparently feeling compelled to share the

experience actively, Mendelssohn did what he could do best, which

was to compose

a symphony. Originally conceived as“ASymphony

forthe Festivalofthe Reformation ofthe Church,” the work eventually

came to be known as the composer’s fifth symphony, even though

it was composed earlier than his second, third, and fourth sym­

phonies. The first movement is introduced by the so-called “Dresden” Amen from the Lutheran liturgy. This motivic element also figures in Wagner’s Parsifal as a “Holy Grail” theme.

The second and third movements have no obvious connection to

religious music, but the fourth isa festive and highly contrapun­

tal finale that culminates ina rendition of the choral, Eirifeste

Burgist unser Gott. Critic John N. Burk’s praise for Mendelssohn

includes the following observation about theD Major Symphony'.

“The sturdy and noble chorale subject and the beautiful“Amen”

cadence, with all their associations, are developed in unchurchly

(sic) symphonic fashion. The music bespeaks his personal style,

fervid in melody, lucid in orchestration, felicitous in detail, [and

is] Mendelssohnian in every bar.”

-Program notes by Elmer Booze

The Fifty-seventh Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2301st Concert

NATIONAL GALLERY ORCHESTRA

GEORGE MANOS, conductor

Sunday Evening, March 7, 1999

SevenO’clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
PROGRAM

Christoph Willibald Gluck Overture to “Iphigenie en Aulide”

(1714-1787) (1774)

Edvard Grieg Peer Gynt Suite No. 1

(1843-1907) Opus 46 (1874-1875; rev. 1888)

Morning

Ase’s Death

Anitra’s Dance

In the Hall of the Mountain King

INTERMISSION

Felix Mendelssohn Symphony No. 5 in D Major

(1809-1847) (“Reformation”)

Opus 107 (1830-1832)

Andante; allegro con fuoco

Allegro vivace

Andante

Chorale: Em’ feste Burg ist unser Gott

(Andante con moto; allegro vivace

allegro maestoso; piu animato poco

a poco)

Conductor, composer, and pianist George Manos has been director ofmusic at the National Gallery ofArt and conductor ofthe

National Gallery Orchestra since 1985. A native Washingtonian,

Manos’ career as a performing pianist and teacher has included several years on the faculty ofCatholic University and directorship of

the Wilmington, Delaware, School of Music. Maestro Manos

founded and directed for ten years the Killarney Bach Festival in

the Republic of Ireland, and was the music director of the 1992

Kolding, Denmark, Scandinavian Music Festival.

Gluck, in his desire to make opera more natural by stripping it of

the primitive protocols of French court opera, conceived a radical 

new approach to writing music for operas and declared: “I sought to

reduce music to its true function, that ofseconding poetry, in order to

strengthen the emotional expression and the impact ofthe dramatic

situations without interrupting the action and without weakening it 

by superfluous ornaments.” In taking this approach, he first “modernized” the overture. Previously a festive projection, in Gluck’s hands

it became a programmatic preview of the opera to follow. Gluck’s

idea was, in his own words: “to apprise the spectators ofthe nature of

the action and to form, so to speak, its argument.”

Gluck enjoyed much success in Vienna in the early 1770s, at which

time his French comic operas were immensely popular. He was

persuaded by Frangois du Roullet, a member ofthe French embassy

staff in Vienna, to write a French opera. Gluck relished the idea as

he wished to seek his fortune in Paris, using as his “calling card” a

serious French opera. As a basis for the libretto, he chose the play,

Iphigenie en Aulide, by the French poet and dramatist Jean Baptiste

Racine (1639-1699). The play tells the story of the Greek king

Agamemnon, who is asked by the goddess Diana to sacrifice his 

daughter, Iphigenie. Ifhe were to carryout the deed, a much needed

wind would allow the Greek navy to sail across the Mediterranean

and defeat the army ofTroy. The first theme ofthe overture is the

music forAgamemnon’s invocation to Diana, heard again at the rise 

of the curtain. The ensuing strains in the woodwinds and strings

are the imposing directives of Diana, interrupted by aggressive, lamenting utterances by the entire orchestra. The composer provided two endings, one for concert use and another that leads without interruption into Act I.

Grieg was thirty-one years old when the great Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen solicited his services to compose a musical score 

based on the latter’s highly imaginative drama, Peer Gynt. Grieg

obliged him with enough music to complete an opera. The original

score, which comprises twenty-two selections, is never heard today

outside of Scandinavia. Allegedly, after its completion, Grieg was 

told to shorten his score. Later, he stated to his American biographer, Henry Finck: “In no case did I have an opportunity to say all I

wanted to say, hence the brevity of these pieces.” There are two

suites, each containing four selections. The second suite resulted

from the overwhelming success ofthe first. In the Ibsen tale, Peer

Gynt is obsessed with his desire to become Emperor of the World,

but lacks the capacity to be realistic about life. This naivete leads