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 of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

Mailing address

2000b South Club Drive

Landover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

cover: J. M.W. Turner, Mortlake Terrace, the Seat of William Moffatt, Esq.; Summer’s Evening (detail), 1827,

oil on canvas, National Gallery ofArt, Washington, Andrew W. Mellon Collection

The Sixty-sixth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,644th Concert

The Alexandria Symphony Orchestra

Kim Allen Kluge, music director

Presented in honor ofJ. M.W. Turner

November 4, 2007

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

German Dance no. 12 (1795)

Beethoven

Symphony no. 4 in B-jlat Major, op. 60 (1807)

Adagio; allegro vivace

Adagio 

Allegro vivace

Allegro ma non troppo

INTERMISSION

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Symphony no. 4 in E Minor, op. 98 (1884-1885)

Allegro non troppo

Andante moderato

Allegro giocoso 

Allegro energico e passionato

J. M.W. Turner is sponsored by The Exhibition Circle ofthe National

Gallery ofArt. Bank ofAmerica is proud to be the national sponsor.

The exhibition is made possible in part through the generous support

of Access Industries. It remains on view in the West Building until

January 6, 2008.

The Musicians

THE ALEXANDRIA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

The Alexandria Symphony Orchestra was founded in 1954, and has established a reputation for thematic and inter-arts programming that features a

mix of classical and contemporary music. The aso’s move in 2002 to the

Schlesinger Center on the Alexandria, Virginia, campus of Northern Virginia 

Community College established its reach and reputation as one ofthe region’s

leading arts institutions. Under the baton ofmaestro Kim Allen Kluge, the

symphony has distinguished itselfthrough powerful performances marked

by poetry and vision.

KIM ALLEN KLUGE

Kim Allen Kluge, the music director ofthe Alexandria Symphony Orchestra,

has made a lasting impression on audiences and critics alike through his

powerful conducting style and its dramatic impact. His extensive accomplishments also include appearances with the Baltimore Lyric Opera, the Boston 

Pops Orchestra, the Mannheim Chamber Orchestra, the Sinfonietta de Paris,

and Les Solistes Parisiens. Throughout Kluge’s versatile career, he has worked

as arranger, chamber musician, chorus director, composer, concertmaster,

concerto soloist, organist, orchestral keyboardist, recitalist, singer, vocal coach,

and wind player. He is a valedictorian ofthe Oberlin College Conservatory of

Music, where he served as concertmaster ofthe Oberlin Chamber Orchestra

and received the coveted Arthur Dann Award for Outstanding Pianist and the

Pi Kappa Lambda Scholarship for Musical Excellence. He pursued graduate

studies in piano and conducting from the University of Maryland and received 

a conducting diploma from the Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena. He

participated in the prestigious Tanglewood conducting program, where he

studied with Roger Norrington, Seiji Ozawa, and Simon Rattle. Maestro Kluge

is widely recognized throughout the region as an orchestra builder. Noting

his accomplishments in this regard, the Washington Post said: “Kluge has

fashioned an ensemble with tremendous musical responsiveness, and every

instrumental group... bears the mark of his intelligence and drive.”

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Program Notes

The program chosen for this concert in honor ofthe exhibition J. M.W.

Turner focuses primarily on the music of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770 -

1827), not only because he was a contemporary ofJoseph Mallord William

Turner (1775-1851), but also because both men began their creative lives

solidly in the classical tradition, underwent a full transformation to romanticism, and presaged postromantic developments in their late works. Turner

was active over a period of six decades, and transformed the genre oflandscape painting through works that heralded a new and visionary direction in

nineteenth-century painting, while also claiming him a direct descendant of 

the old masters. Known for his technical brilliance and startling use oflight 

and color, Turner incorporated learned references to literature, mythology,

and historical events in his pictures. His late works anticipate the Impressionists and even go beyond what they accomplished in abstract organization ofthe phenomena ofluminosity. The exhibition of his works now on 

view at the National Gallery through January 6, 2008 is the most comprehensive survey ofTurner’s work ever presented in the United States.

Beethoven was a product ofthe classical era of Haydn and Mozart, who

were giants in their own time. When Beethoven came to Vienna as a young

man in his twenties, Mozart had been dead only a few years and Joseph

Haydn was at the height of his international popularity, despite being in his 

mid-seventies. The music of the latter composers was distinguished by a

formal structure that was light and airy, and its internal workings never

obscured the principal melody and harmony. What made Haydn, Mozart,

and the young Beethoven stand out among their contemporaries was their

ability to adapt this structure in subtle, fresh, and invigorating ways.

Beethoven’s early style, exemplified by the German Dance on this 

evening’s program, owes a great deal to the music of Haydn and Mozart.

Although there were many composers writing in this style (among them

Antonio Salieri, more famous today for his reputed role in Mozart’s death 

than for his music), Beethoven stood head and shoulders above them. He

lifted the cliched forms out oftheir old patterns and took them to new

4

musical heights. But the young Beethoven, like so many of his generation,

grew impatient with established styles and forms. A new century was on its

way, and a whiff ofrevolution was in the air. The American Revolution in

the 1770s and 1780s and the French Revolution that consumed most ofthe 

179os left Europe in a state of excited anticipation—what country would

be next? Musicians were not immune to this fever, and their compositions

reflected this driving change. Most ofthe art and music of earlier ages had

focused on three subjects: the world ofreligion, the portraits ofroyalty

and nobility, and the figures of Greek and Roman mythology. In the early

nineteenth century, literature and the visual arts began to deal with issues

from the lives of ordinary people.

Beethoven’s early compositions are firmly rooted in the classical traditions of Haydn and Mozart. The symphonies he wrote in the first decade

ofthe nineteenth century, however, are of a completely different nature. Two

ofthem, Symphony no. 3, (the “Eroica”) and the monumental and popular

Symphony no. 5, are generally acknowledged as mountain peaks in music,

with the result that his Fourth Symphony is sometimes regarded as a valley,

albeit a beautiful one. In all three cases, the musical forms may recall an 

earlier era, but the melodic elements and their development are totally new.

For example, the slow opening ofthe first movement ofthe Fourth

Symphony contains the entire movement in miniature. In the remaining ten

minutes ofthe movement Beethoven returns to the melodic elements that

he presented at first. The rhythmic impetus ofthe first movement is an 

unexpected syncopation—instead ofthe expected accent pattern in 4/4 time

to be on the first and third beats ofthe measure, Beethoven surprises the

listener by placing the emphasis on the second and fourth beats.

In the slow second movement, a long, sinuous melody holds the listener’s

interest as it passes through the different instrumental groups ofthe orchestra. In the third movement, Beethoven returns repeatedly to a melody that 

soon becomes familiar and knits the whole movement together. Short musical 

“excursions” tease the listener away from the melody, but it is all the more 

welcome with each return.

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The final movement is fast and furious, akin to a rollicking roller-coaster 

ride that makes one sharp turn after another. One minute the ride is smooth, 

and the next it is a frantic rush down hill without any brakes. When the 

breathtaking trip is over, one realizes that the Fourth Symphony is a mountain peak in its own right.

Beethoven and Brahms were men from two different ages, and by rights

their music should have been worlds apart as well. However, there are great

similarities in the music ofthe two men, due to Brahms’ awe and admiration of Beethoven’s genius. The developmental arch that is represented in

the nine symphonies of Beethoven is reflected in the four symphonies of

Brahms. Brahms’ Fourth Symphony is a culmination and denouement of his 

symphonic work in much the same way that Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony

fulfills and goes beyond all that was promised in his earlier symphonies.

Despite the fact that Brahms composed the Fourth Symphony when he

was in his fifties, the work has all the fire and vivid muscularity of youth.

It is a bold and dramatic work that uses the orchestra to create great sweeping gestures ofsound. Brahms creates rich moments of contrast by using

the orchestral choirs—the strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion—

sometimes in pairs, sometimes contrapuntally.

Of all Brahms’ symphonies, the fourth had the coolest reception. Some

critics hailed the symphony as a great work, but the audiences weren’t sure 

they liked it, finding it difficult to relate this music to anything they had heard

by Brahms or any ofhis contemporaries. It remained for subsequent generations to warm up to and fully appreciate this forward-looking masterpiece.

Program notes by Peter Fay

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Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

Paul Badura-Skoda, pianist

Music by Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, and Schubert

November n, 2007

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court