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 ofthe 

West Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

For the convenience of concertgoers, 

the Garden Cafe remains open for light refreshments

until 6:00 pm on Sundays.

Music Department

National Gallery of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

wuw.ngfl.gov

cover: Berthe Morisot, Rest, 1888/1890, drypoint [reprinted by Ambrose Vollard],

National Gallery ofArt, Washington, Rosenwald Collection

The Seventieth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery of Art

2,878th Concert

Carmen Balthrop, soprano 

Jose Caceres, pianist

Presented in honor of

Women’s History Month

March 11, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

None But the Lonely Heart, op. 6, no. 6

Amid the Noise ofthe Ball, op. 38, no. 3

Why?, op. 6, no. 5

Three Traditional Chinese Folk Songs 

The Harvest (An Hwei)

A River Runs through It (Yien Nan)

Flower Drum Song of Fung-Yang (An Hwei)

Three Brazilian Songs

Melodia Sentimental (Heitor Villa-Lobos)

Azulao, op. 21 (Jayme Ovalle)

Boi-Bumba (Arranged by Waldemar Henrique)

From Forest ofthe Amazon

Antonin Dvorak (1841-1904)

Mesicku na nebi hlubokem (Song to the Moon)

From Rusalka
INTERMISSION

Robert B. Greenleaf (b. 1949)

A Modem Woman's Life and Love

When First Her Form

Terror Trembling

Round the Table

I Speak, ‘Tis Clear

Fourteen Lines on Orange Felines (Living Together with Cats)

Ponies on a Carousel

Some Say

I Felt Your Soul

World Premiere Performance

Fernando Obradors (1897-1945)

From Canciones cldsicas espaholas

(jCorazon, por que pasais... ?

Del cabello mas sutil (Dos cantares populares)

Chiquitita la novia (Coplas del curro dulce)

The Musicians

CARMEN BALTHROP

In great demand as a recitalist, operatic soprano, and soloist with orchestras,

Carmen Balthrop performs a wide range ofrepertoire from baroque opera 

to contemporary song. In the United States Balthrop has appeared with the

Dallas, Florentine, Houston, Metropolitan, Miami, San Francisco, and Seattle

opera companies. In Europe she has sung in Berlin’s Teatro des Westerns, 

Spoleto’s Opera House, and Venice’s Teatro La Fenice. Her orchestral 

appearances include oratorio and concert performances with the New York

Philharmonic Orchestra as well as the Boston, Detroit, Houston, National,

Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Saint Louis symphony orchestras. Her recital

engagements have taken her to Carnegie Hall, the John F. Kennedy Center 

for the Performing Arts, and the White House as well as to the Bahamas, 

China, Italy, Mexico, The Netherlands, and Russia.

Recent engagements include a recital at the American Embassy in

Moscow and a concert with the Smolny Church A Capella Chorus in Saint

Petersburg; the world premiere ofthe opera Free to Sing, commissioned by

Strathmore Hall; and the role of Lillie in the world premiere of Frank Proto’s

opera Shadowboxer: An Opera Based on the Life ofJoe Louis at the Clarice

Smith Performing Arts Center at the University of Maryland.

Committed to performing music by living composers, Balthrop has

recorded songs written by Chris Urquiaga and performed Leslie Adams’

Hymn to Freedom at the African American Art Song Alliance conference 

in Irvine, California. She collaborates frequently with composer Leslie

Burrs, having performed in his operas Vanqui and Transitions: Sung Stories.

In April, Balthrop will perform the world premiere of Miss Manners, a song 

cycle by renowned composer Dominick Argento.

A professor ofvoice at the University of Maryland School ofMusic, Carmen 

Balthrop has been inducted into the university’s Alumni Hall of Fame and the 

Omicron Delta Honor Society and is a recipient ofthe university president’s

“Model of Excellence” award. Balthrop’s 1999 recital at the National Gallery

ofArt was aired on National Public Radio on Christmas Day 2000.

5
JOSE CACERES

Critically acclaimed as a musician ofvirtuosity and versatility, pianist Jose

Caceres has appeared throughout the United States and Central and South

America. In addition to two previous appearances at the National Gallery,

he has performed recitals in the Concert Hall at the Fine Arts Center in San

Juan, Puerto Rico; the Concert Hall, Terrace Theater, and Millennium Stage 

at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; the Corcoran Gallery;

the Sala Manuel M. Ponce at the Palace of Fine Arts in Mexico City; and the

Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall. He has been heard as concerto soloist with

the American Youth Philharmonic, Fairfax Symphony, National Symphony, 

and Puerto Rico Symphony orchestras. With a repertoire that encompasses

a wide range ofstyles, Caceres has brought to the forefront some ofthe

most ambitious and challenging music oflesser-known contemporary Latin

American composers, earning him a Ford Foundation grant administered

by the Johns Hopkins University's Latin American Studies Program.

Caceres received his bachelor and master ofmusic degrees from the

University of Maryland, where he was a scholarship student ofThomas

Schumacher. While studying at Maryland, he won the Elizabeth Davis, Homer

Ulrich, and Theodore Presser Foundation Awards. A major prizewinner in

numerous national and international competitions, he has honors from the

Young Soloists’ Competition ofthe National Symphony Orchestra, the Teresa

Carreno International Piano Competition ofVenezuela, and the Kennedy

Center’s Fellowships ofthe Americas program.

Frequently asked to collaborate with Carmen Balthrop and other singers

in art song recitals, he has also appeared as collaborative pianist with the

Washington Chamber Society as well as at the Irving S. Gilmore International

Keyboard Festival, the San Antonio Music Festival, and the Marian Anderson

International Vocal Arts Competition and Festival.

In conjunction with the National Museum ofAmerican History’s exhibition Piano 300: Celebrating Three Hundred Years ofPeople and Piano, Caceres 

was one offour pianists featured in a series ofrecitals and master classes

exploring the Spanish and Latin American repertoire. In 2009 he was chosen

by the Smithsonian Institution to participate in the inaugural concerts in

honor of President Obama.

6

Program Notes

Tchaikovsky’s first collection ofsongs, Six Romancesfor Voice and Piano, op.

6, displays considerable skill in vocal writing. The opus includes several of

his best-loved pieces, including “None But the Lonely Heart,” for which the

composer used a Russian translation ofthe original German text by Goethe—

“Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt” (Only He Who Knows Loneliness). One of

Mignon’s songs from the novel Wilhelm Meister, the text inspired Romantic

lieder composers—most notably Schubert, Schumann, and Wolf—to compose some oftheir most memorable songs. The poem’s sense of desolate

yearning speaks to the very heart ofromanticism, where Tchaikovsky was very

much at home. “Amid the Noise ofthe Ball,” written in 1878 in the aftermath of his ill-fated marriage and his resignation from his post as a teacher,

is one of his most haunting songs. Set to a text by Alexander Tolstoy, it captures the loneliness, alienation, and the longing for affection that are at the

heart ofTchaikovsky’s best and most characteristic music. “Why?” is a setting

of a poem by Heinrich Heine, titled “Why Then Are the Roses So Pale?”

Each Chinese province maintains its own heritage offolk music that

reflects the livelihood ofthe local people and, quite often, the history ofthe

region. Major dynastic migrations as well as the invasion offoreign nomads

introduced new elements into the folk song tradition of each province. “The

Harvest Song,” from the An Hwei Province, describes how farmers sing and

relax after harvest. Their basic desires are expressed—good tools to work

with and a harvest that is plentiful. The singer is given considerable liberty

regarding interpretation and is not bound by strict rhythm. From the Sichuan

Province, “A River Runs through It” describes a moonlit scene in which a

young girl thinks ofher lover and transmits her thoughts through the flowing 

stream that goes by his house. “Flower-Drum Song of Fung-Yang” is also 

from the An Hwei Province. “Drum song” is a musical term that refers to 

a category offolk songs with drum accompaniment. In this particular drum

song, the protagonist grieves over how the once prosperous Fung-Yang

County suffered from nine years offamine within a decade. The resulting

poverty gave families no choice but to sell their sons.

7
Recognized as the single most significant creative figure in twentiethcentury Brazilian art music, Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959) composed

for almost every instrument and genre. His music was influenced by both

Brazilian folk music and the European classical tradition. In “Melodia 

Sentimental,” one ofhis most frequently performed songs, a lover bids his

beloved to wake up in order to view the moon. The moon sweeps over the

dark night; its silent bright flame warms the lovers’ dreams.

Jayme Ovalle (1894-1955) was a self-taught Brazilian composer and poet. 

As an officer of Brazil’s Ministerio da Fazenda (ministry in charge of plantations), he resided mostly in New York and London. He was one ofthe “Second 

Nationalist Generation” of Brazilian composers, along with Oscar Lorenzo

Fernandez (1897-1948) and Walter Burle-Marx (1902-1990). His best-known

song is “Azulao” (Bluebird), set to a text by Manuel Bandeira. The words speak

of a lover who sends the bluebird to his beloved to deliver the message that

without her, the sertao (an expansive prairie) no longer exists. This song, or

can^ao, as it is known in Brazil, has been extensively recorded.

Ofnorthern Brazilian origin, Waldemar Henrique da Costa Pereira (1905-

1995) composed more than 120 songs, all ofwhich differ from mainstream

Brazilian popular songs. “Boi-Bumba,” roughly translated “beat the bull,”

is a popular comic-dramatic dance, which tells the story ofthe death and

resurrection of an ox. The wife of Francisco, a farm worker, is pregnant and

wants desperately to eat the tongue ofthe farm owner’s favorite bull. She 

fears her baby will be born with a face looking like a bull’s tongue unless

she does this, so Francisco complies with his wife’s wish and kills the prized

bull. The farm owner hears about Francisco’s deed and orders some Indians

to capture him. Trying to fix his own mistake, Francisco goes to a “Paje"

(magic priest ofthe Indians) and asks him, through his magical powers, to

bring the bull back to life. The “Paje” complies, and the miracle is celebrated

with a grand party.

One ofthe most successful Czech operas, Antonin Dvorak’s Rusalka is

based on fairy tales by Karel Jaromfr Erben and Bozena Nemcova, as transformed into a libretto by the Czech poet Jaroslav Kvapil (1868-1950). In

Slavic mythology, a rusalka is a singing water nymph inhabiting a lake or

river. In this story, Rusalka gives up her voice in order to marry a prince. Her

“Song to the Moon” occurs at the beginning ofthe opera, before she loses her

voice. The opera was first performed in Prague on March 31,1901.

Given its first performance in tonight’s concert, Robert Greenleaf’s A

Modern Woman’s Life and Love is based on eight poems by Kenneth Walters, 

a retired philosophy professor who lives in Auburn, Alabama. In this cycle,

the poems are a gift for the poet’s wife, who in turn sings them back to him,

sometimes teasing him or trying to goad him into action, but always singing

with love and sensitivity. The story begins with When First Her Form, in which

the poet first meets his wife-to-be, an artist. Terror Trembling represents his

trepidation at asking her out. In Round the Table, the drinking song that

follows, both the poet and artist find themselves at the same party. “I Speak,

’Tis Clear” is the wife’s teasing response to the poet’s hesitant approach. The

fifth song ofthe cycle, titled Fourteen Lines on Orange Felines (Living Together

with Cats) is a setting of a charming nonsense poem. Ponies on a Carousel

represents a magical moment for both adults and their children, while Some

Say offers a succinct view of aging. Summing up the experience oflife and

love, I Felt Your Soul, culminates the cycle.

Born in Barcelona, Fernando Obradors cultivated a lighthearted style

of composition that combines neoclassicism, folksong, and tonadilla (short,

satirical comic songs from the eighteenth-century Spanish theatrical tradition).

Largely self-taught—he studied piano with his mother and taught himself

harmony, counterpoint, and composition—Obradors enjoyed a musical

career that included conducting the Liceo and Radio Barcelona Orchestras

as well as the Philharmonic Orchestra of Gran Canaria. He wrote a number

of zarzuelas and symphonic works, but is best known for his Canciones

clasicas espaholas (Classic Spanish Songs), published in four volumes. The

three Canciones that conclude this program—^Corazon, por que pasais...?,

Del cabello mas sutil, and Chiquitita la novia, describe the sadness, sentimentality, and playfulness oflove, respectively. The final song plays with Spanish

words of endearment ending in “ita” (tiny).

Program notes on “A Modern Woman’s Life and Love’’ by Robert Greenleaf;

other notes by Carmen Balthrop

9
Upcoming concerts at the National Gallery ofArt

Cyrus Forough, violinist

Stephen Ackert, pianist

Music by J. S. Bach, Beethoven,

Falla, and Handel

March 18, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Jessica Jones, soprano

Danielle Hahn, pianist

Music by Clara Schumann

and other women composers

Presented in honor of

Women’s History Month

March 25, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court