Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

Carmina

Instrumental music from the Golden Age ofThe Netherlands

October 21, 2009

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall 

Presented in honor of

Judith Leyster, 1609-1660

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 ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

Mailing address

2000B South Club Drive

Landover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

cover: Felicien Rops, Gaspard de la Nuit (detail), 1868,

National Gallery ofArt, Washington, Rosenwald Collection

The Sixty-eighth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell

and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,740th Concert

National Gallery ofArt Piano Trio

Luke Wedge, violinist

Benjamin R. Wensel, cellist

Danielle DeSwert Hahn, pianist

Presented in honor of

The Darker Side ofLight:

Arts ofPrivacy i8jo-ic)00,

and in collaboration with the

Embassy of Belgium

October 18, 2009

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Cesar Franck (1822-1890)

Trio do salon, op. 1, no. 2 (1840)

Allegro moderato

Andantino

Minuetto

Final: Allegro molto

Henri Vieuxtemps (1820-1881)

Trio concertant sur I’Africaine (1866)

INTERMISSION

Joseph Jongen (1873-1953)

Trio pour piano, violon, et violoncello, op. 10 (1896-1897) 

Allegro appassionato

Andante molto sostenuto

Allegro deciso

The Musicians

LUKE WEDGE

Luke Wedge received a master ofmusic degree in violin performance from 

Northwestern University and a bachelor ofmusic degree in English literature from the University of Kansas. His principal instructors included David

Perry, Gerardo Ribeiro, and Ben Sayevich. Wedge has made solo and recital

appearances in Chicago, Illinois; Lawrence, Kansas; and Washington, DC.

He is an experienced orchestral musician and has been engaged by the 

National Gallery of Art Orchestra, the National Symphony, and the Ravinia

Festival, among others. Since 2003 he has been a member ofthe Covington

String Quartet, which was the quartet-in-residence at Gettysburg College in 

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania from 2003-2006. Wedge is also a member ofthe 

United Air Force Strings.

BENJAMIN R. WENSEL

Benjamin R. Wensel holds degrees from the Cleveland Institute of Music

and the Eastman School of Music. He has performed in seminars and master

classes for members ofthe Cleveland, Guarneri, Juilliard, Miami, and Ying

quartets; studied chamber music with Peter Salaff and members ofthe 

Audubon and Cavani Quartets; and participated in solo master classes with 

Clemens Michael Hagen, Steven Isserlis, and Michel Strauss.

Wensel has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra, the 

ProMusica Chamber Orchestra, the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, and

the Syracuse Symphony as well as with many fine local ensembles. A founding member ofthe Tarab Cello Ensemble, Wensel performed in the premieres 

ofmore than twenty new works written by established and emerging American composers, and participated in the ensemble’s residencies at Princeton

University, Stetson University, and the University of South Florida. He taught

chamber music and maintained a studio at the Hochstein School of Music

in Rochester, New York, where he was the cellist ofthe Hochstein String 

Quartet. Currently a member ofthe faculty at the Washington Conservatory,

Wensel maintains a private studio in Arlington, Virginia, and plays with the

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newly formed Messaien Quartet as well as the National Gallery ofArt Piano

Trio. He can be heard on recordings produced by the Bridge, Harmonia

Mundi, and Summit record labels.

DANIELLE DESWERT HAHN

Brussels-born pianist Danielle DeSwert Hahn is a freelance collaborative 

pianist and coach and the music program specialist at the National Gallery

of Art. She has worked as a pianist and coach with the Ash Lawn Highland

Opera Festival, Chautauqua Opera, Indianapolis Opera, Kentucky Opera,

the New Orleans Opera Association, Portland (Oregon) Opera, the San Francisco Opera Center, Sarasota Opera, and the Washington National Opera.

From 2004-2006 she was the principal repetiteur with the Baltimore

Opera Company and Washington Concert Opera.

She performs regularly in chamber music and voice recitals, including

performances at the Arts Club ofWashington, the Jewish Community

Center of Greater Washington, the Kennedy Center, the Mexican Institute of

Culture, the National Gallery, the Russian Embassy, and the White House.

She is principal pianist with the Inscape Chamber Music Project. She holds

a master ofmusic degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor,

where she studied with Martin Katz, and a bachelor ofmusic degree from

the University ofCalifornia, Santa Barbara. She also studied with Warren

Jones and Anne Epperson at the Music Academy ofthe West and was an

apprentice coach with the Washington Opera, working with Placido Domingo.

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Program Notes

The art ofthe late nineteenth century largely connotes impressionism, paintings of cafe-concerts and the open air that invoke the entertainments of city

life and the pleasures ofthe landscape. A less familiar side to the story exists, 

one in a realm ofsober contemplation and recherche. These sometimes

enigmatic and often melancholy subjects explore an altogether different dimension of aesthetic experience and appreciation. In this discreet world of

individual collecting, prints, drawings, and small sculpture were kept aside

in portfolios or stored away in cabinets for more purposeful, private study, 

much like taking a book from the shelffor quiet enjoyment.

The Darker Side ofLight: Arts ofPrivacy 1850-1900, the exhibition currendy on view in the National Gallery’s prints and drawings galleries, includes

more than a hundred works in the Gallery’s extensive collections that reflect

this late-Romantic sensibility. Such an encounter with art was a private affair 

that often encouraged the investigation of highly suggestive, sometimes disturbing subject matter. These complex states ofmind and symptoms of deep

social tension surfaced in opium dreams, obsessions over a lover, despairing

contemplations ofsuicide, and abject meditations on violence and death. By

no means restricted to the visual arts, this somber aesthetic found voice in

poetry, prose, theater, and, not least, music, and attracted the talents of academically trained artists, realists, impressionists, and especially symbolists.

Much like their musical counterparts, symbolist artists in particular sought

to dissolve any simple equation between the experience of art and the empirical world.

Composers also responded to the various moods ofsymbolism, especially 

in their chamber music. The most famous music ofGabriel Fame (1845 —

1924), Cesar Franck (1822-1890), and Henri Duparc (1848-1933), for example, 

is characterized by balance, pleasant sonorities, and flowing lines, but these

composers also explored the darker side ofmusical expression. One thinks

ofthe contemplative Andante from Fame’s String Quartet, op. 121, the enigmatic Scherzo from Franck’s String Quartet in D Major, or such Duparc

songs as Chanson triste (Sad Song), La Vie anterieure (The Former Life) and

Soupir (Sigh).

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Among the artists represented in the exhibition are a number of Belgians,

including James Ensor (1860-1949), Fernand Khnopff (1858-1921), and

Felicien Rops (1833-1890), whose work is featured on the cover ofthe concert

program. In this last offour concerts dedicated to The Darker Side ofLight:

Arts ofPrivacy 1850-1900, all ofthe music is by Belgian composers.

Cesar Franck was born in Liege to a father whose ambition was to have

two sons who were instrumental virtuosi. Though the young Franck was a

gifted pianist, his interests lay elsewhere. After graduating from the Paris

Conservatoire he decided to give up any career aspirations as a concert pianist

and made his living teaching and as a church organist. It was after he gained 

the position of organist at the Saint Clothilde Basilica in 1858 that he began 

to attract attention as a composer. Franck left a great legacy, not only in his 

body ofwork, but in the development of a style that was passed down through

his many influential students, including Ernest Chausson, Henri Duparc,

and Vincent d’Indy. His output was not enormous, but his instrumental chamber works are masterpieces ofform and style.

Franck’s first published opus consists ofthree piano trios. Not well

known (and difficult to find in print), these youthful pieces show signs of

what would later become the composer’s signature style, including the use

of cyclic themes. The Trio de salon, op. 1, no. 2, is a charming four-movement 

work that is easy on the ears. Franck wrote the Trio, op. 1, no. 1, of his own

volition, but nos. 2 and 3 came about only after some pressure from his 

father, who wanted a significant opus that he could dedicate to Leopold 1 of

Belgium (reigned 1831-1865), and thus introduce his son at court.

Best known for his contributions to the Belgian school of violin technique, Henri Vieuxtemps also composed seven violin concertos, two cello

concertos, a number of pieces for violin and piano, and some chamber music.

As a performing member of quartets and an organizer of chamber music

recitals, he contributed significantly to this genre. Sometimes verging on the 

theatrical and the saccharine, Vieuxtemps’ music nevertheless has an engaging sense of nobility. His Trio concertant sur I’Africaine is another work that is

almost impossible to find in print, and recordings ofit, ifthey exist, are not

included in any standard catalogs. The score used for this performance was

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located in a library in Italy by Jonathan Frohnen, a researcher and collector

ofnineteenth-century violin music. No composition date is given in the 

score, published by Milan F. Lucca, but it was probably composed in 1866.

The previous year, Meyerbeer’s opera LAfricaine had its Paris premiere. A

record of a performance ofVieuxtemps’ Trio was found in the November 30,

1866, issue ofthe Journal de Toulouse in which the piece was listed on the 

program for the following night, with the composer performing. It is possible

that this evening’s performance at the National Gallery ofArt is the first in

North America for this previously forgotten gem.

Bom in Liege about fifty years after Cesar Franck, Joseph Jongen followed

in Franck’s footsteps, attending the Liege Conservatoire from a very young 

age. Jongen began composing at age thirteen and went on to win numerous

composition prizes, including the Grand Prix de Rome in 1897. This award 

gave him the opportunity to study abroad for four years. He chose to begin

in Germany, as he was a great devotee of Brahms as well as the new German

school, represented by Richard Strauss. Subsequently he went to France, in

order to gain maximum exposure to the music of Franck, who was teaching 

in Paris at the time, as well as Debussy. French mentors proved to have more

influence on Jongen than German ones, but he developed his own unique

musical language.

Jongen’s Trio in B Minorfor Piano, Violin, and Cello employs the cyclical

form pioneered by Franck. The stormy first movement, Allegro appassionato,

contains two themes. Initially stated separately, the themes merge in the 

development section as a duet. In place of a recapitulation, there is a unison

restatement ofthe opening theme, a slow winding down, and an explosive

ending. The expansive second movement, Andante molto sostenuto, pays

homage to another Belgian composer, Guillaume Lekeu, who died tragically

at age twenty-four. In the second theme we hear a figure, marked misterioso,

that is to become the main theme for the third movement. Translated into

an angry, tempestuous unison in the strings, this motif opens the finale

(Allegro deciso). A syncopated second theme leads into a quiet central section—

the calm before the storm ofthe frenzied coda.

Program notes by Danielle DeSwert Hahn

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