A singer in the Sistine Chapel Choir by the name of Ravagli recognized

his talent and introduced him to good teachers. Soon thereafter, at the

tender age of seventeen, Briccialdi was appointed to a teaching position

at the Academy of Santa Cecilia, and he abandoned the family’s plan for

holy orders. From 1834 to 1836 he was the personal flute teacher of the

prince of Siracusa, a brother of King Victor Immanuel I. In 1836

Briccialdi moved to Naples and subsequently to Milan. In 1841 he

undertook a concert tour of Europe and America and the following year

settled in London, where he became one of the directors of Rudal and

Rose, an instrument-making company at Covent Garden. Briccialdi

composed two flute concertos and many works for flute and piano,

including operatic fantasies and a set of variations on The Carnival of

Venice. His Wind Quintet in D Major, Op. 124, is a light-hearted work in

the style of the bel canto opera composers, whose music he knew well.

Notes on Reicha and Pierne by Elmer Booze

Notes on Danzi and Briccialdi by Danny K. Phipps,

edited and adapted by Elmer Booze

For the convenience of concertgoers

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

This is the last concert ofthe Gallery’s 2002-2003 season.

Concerts will resume on 5 October 2003 with a performance

by the National Gallery Orchestra, George Manos, conductor.

The Sixtyfirst Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2465th Concert

NATIONAL GALLERY CHAMBER PLAYERS

WIND QUINTET

GEORGE MANOS, artistic director

NICOLETTE OPPELT, flute RONALD L. SIPES, oboe

JAMES BRYLA, clarinet KENNETH BELL, French horn

DANNY K. PHIPPS, bassoon

Sunday Evening, 29 June 2003

Seven O’clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
Program

Anton Reicha

(1770-1836)

Quintet in D Major

Op. 91, No. 3 (1820)

Adagio

Andante con variazioni

Minuetto: Allegro vivo

Finale: Allegro vivo

Gabriel Pierne

(1863-1937)

Pastorale for Wind Instruments

(1887)

Intermission

Franz Danzi

(1763-1826)

Quintet No. 3 in F Major, Op. 56

(1820)

Andante sostenuto; allegro

Andante

Minuetto: Allegretto

Allegretto

Giulio Briccialdi

(1818-1881)

Quintet in D Major, Op. 124

(published 1875)

Allegro marziale

Andante

Allegro

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.

The Musicians

Since the enthusiastic public reception of its first concert in 1995, the

National Gallery Chamber Players Wind Quintet has become a

regular feature of the Gallery’s popular Sunday evening concerts. Under

the guidance of Gallery music director George Manos, the ensemble

explores and presents masterpieces of chamber music that are not often

heard, as well as the standard classics for wind quintet.

Flutist Nicolette Oppelt was born in Amstelveen, The

Netherlands, where she began studying at age twelve with Hans van

Loenen. After coming to the United States in 1977, she continued her

studies with Philip Dunigan at the North Carolina School of the Arts,

earning the bachelor of music degree. Much in demand as a chamber 

musician, she has played with the Capitol Woodwind Quintet, the Lara

Ensemble, and the Contemporary Music Forum. In 1982 she won first

prize in the Dutch Young Artists Competition, which entitled her to

perform on Dutch National Television with an orchestra under the

direction of her father, conductor Leo Driehuys.

Oboist Ronald Sipes studied with Marc Lifschey and received

the bachelor and master of music degrees from the San Francisco

Conservatory of Music. He has played principal oboe in the Orquesta

Sinfonica de Castille y Leon in Valladolid, Spain; the New World

Symphony; and the Orquesta del Estado de Mexico. Since moving to the

Northern Virginia area in 1994, Sipes has played with numerous 

orchestras and ensembles, including the National Gallery Orchestra, the

Washington Opera, and the Theater Chamber Players.

Clarinetist James Bryla, a graduate of The Catholic University of

America, studied the clarinet with Sidney Forrest. He made his solo

debut with the National Symphony Orchestra at age twenty-one as the

winner of the 1987 Young Soloists Competition. Other awards include

the Milton W. King Memorial Certificate, the Presser Scholar Award,

and first prizes in the 1986 and 1987 International Clarinetist

Competitions. Bryla is currently principal clarinetist in the National

Gallery Orchestra, the Alexandria Symphony, and the East Wind

Consort.
French hornist Kenneth Bell, a native of Buffalo, New York, is a

graduate of the Eastman School of Music and The Catholic University of

America. He is a former member of the United States Marine Band and

the Army Field Band. His chamber music experience includes the

Charleston Symphony Wind Quintet, the United States Marine Band

Wind Quintet, and the Army Field Band Brass Quintet. He is a regular 

substitute with the Washington Opera and the Baltimore Symphony

Orchestra, with which he toured Europe in 2001.

Retired Chief Master Sergeant Danny K. Phipps was the principal

bassoonist with the United States Air Force Concert Band at Bolling Air

Force Base for twenty years. A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music

in Philadelphia, he received the master of music and doctor of musical arts

degrees from The Catholic University of America. Currently an active

performer and teacher in the Baltimore-Washington area, Phipps is the

principal bassoonist with the National Gallery Orchestra, the National

Gallery Chamber Players Wind Quintet, and the Annapolis Chamber 

Orchestra. He is also professor of bassoon and music literature at the

Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia.

Program Notes

Anton (Antoine) Reicha was born in Prague but is counted among the

French composers of note, having assumed French citizenship in 1829.

Known chiefly as a composer of chamber music, he was appointed

professor of counterpoint and fugue at the Paris Conservatory in 1818.

He is given credit for originating the wind quintet as a genre and

composed twenty-eight wind quintets in his lifetime. Reicha’s views

regarding the task of writing chamber music for winds appear in an

unpublished autobiography, portions of which have been quoted by

flutist and musicologist Felix Skowronek: “A new style of composition 

was necessary for these instruments. They hold the mean between voices

and strings. Combinations of a particular kind had to be devised in order

to strike the listener. After much thought and a careful study of the

possibilities of each instrument, I made my second attempt and wrote

two very successful quintets. A few years later I had completed the six

[that] make up the first book....Encouraged by their success, I wrote

eighteen more, bringing the number to twenty-four....If the many

congratulatory letters I received can be believed, they created a sensation

throughout Europe.” In addition, Reicha composed a large body of

symphonies, concertos, piano works, and operas.

A pupil of both Franck and Massenet, Gabriel Pierne “was always

respected as a musician of the utmost integrity [and] was perhaps one of

the most ‘complete’ of French composers....Throughout his work, clarity

of texture and a fine sense of balance and contrast are characteristic”

(David Cox in The New Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians).

Pierne’s Pastorale for Wind Instruments is a transcription of one of his

youthful compositions, entitled Album pour mes petits amis (Album for

My Little Friends), Op. 14. The “little friends” were the children of the

notable French music publisher Alphonse Leduc. The oboe and flute are

prominently featured in dialogue in this light and airy work. Its

pronounced simplicity is a hallmark of Pierne’s musical style.

Skilled craftsmanship, pleasant idiomatic melodies, and a

conservative formulaic approach to quintet writing characterize the

Quintet No. 3 in F Major, Op. 56, of Franz Danzi. His harmonic

language was adventurous for his time, with unexpected cross-relations

and diminished sonorities resulting from chromatic part-writing. He was

also fond of starting movements in some key other than the tonic. This

combination of harmonic daring with a rigid classical approach to

traditional forms is a hallmark of the emerging romantic style at the

outset of the nineteenth century. Danzi’s first three wind quintets date

from 1820 and are dedicated to Anton Reicha, who had already 

composed twenty-five wind quintets between 1810 and 1820.

Giulio Briccialdi, an Italian flautist and composer, made a

significant contribution to the versatility of the flute by improving on the

work of Theobald Boehm (1794-1881), the inventor of the modern

cylindrical flute. Briccialdi arranged for the addition of a key, known

today as “Briccialdi’s thumbplate,” that enables the flutist to play a low

B-flat. Briccialdi, who was born in Terni, Italy, learned to play the flute

from his father. Upon his father’s death, he was expected by his family to

join the priesthood, and he went to Rome to study at the Vatican.