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performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell phones,

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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 ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

www.nga.gov

Concerts are made possible in part through the generosity of donors

to the National Gallery ofArt through The Circle. Reserved seating is

available in recognition oftheir support. Please contact the development

office at (202) 842-6450 or circle@nga.gov for more information.

The Seventy-second Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery of Art

2,960th Concert

National Gallery Orchestra 

Claudia Chudacoff, leader

October 20, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

Concerto grosso, op. 6, no 5 (1739)

Overture

Allegro

Presto

Largo

Allegro

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Rondofor Violin and Strings in A Major, D. 438 (1816)

Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)

Holberg Suite, op. 40 (1884)

Praeludium (Allegro vivace)

Sarabande (Andante)

Gavotte and Musette (Allegretto; un poco mosso)

Air (Andante religioso)

Rigaudon (Allegro con brio)

INTERMISSION

Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)

Verklarte Nacht (1899)
The Musicians

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART ORCHESTRA

Founded in 1943, the National Gallery ofArt Orchestra initially consisted

of approximately twenty-five players drawn from the National Symphony

Orchestra. Gradually growing in numbers, the Gallery orchestra eventually

reached the size and status of a large chamber orchestra. The ensemble has

undertaken the full range of chamber and symphonic repertoire and has

frequently presented first performances ofworks by American composers,

most notably the 1953 premiere ofCharles Ives’ Symphony no. 1 under the

direction ofRichard Bales; the 1990 premiere of Daniel Pinkham’s Symphony

no. 4 under George Manos; and the 2007 premiere ofJohn Musto’s Later the

Same Evening: An opera inspired byjive paintings ofEdward Hopper, under

guest conductor Glen Cortese. Other guest conductors who have appeared

with the orchestra in recent years include Bjarte Engeset, Philippe Entremont,

Vladimir Lande, George Mester, Otto-Werner Mueller, and Jose Serebrier.

CLAUDIA CHUDACOFF

Concertmaster ofthe Alexandria Symphony Orchestra, the National Gallery 

ofArt Orchestra, and the United States Marine Band White House Chamber

Orchestra, violinist Claudia Chudacoff appears frequently as a soloist and

chamber musician in the Washington and Baltimore areas. A member of

both the Sunrise Quartet and the National Gallery ofArt String Quartet,

she has also performed with the Contemporary Music Forum and National

Musical Arts as well as in the Embassy Series and at the United States

Holocaust Memorial Museum. She is featured on a CD of chamber music by

Erich Korngold released by Albany Records, and has been heard a number

oftimes on American Public Media’s Performance Today.

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Program Notes

In the mid-i730s, in response to the expectations of concert audiences ofhis

time, George Frideric Handel composed organ concerti to be played during the

intervals ofhis oratorio performances. For the 1739-1740 season, he adapted

this practice to the string ensemble, composing twelve grand concerti grossi

in the style ofArcangelo Corelli (1653-1715). The result was a set oforchestral

works that captured the public’s imagination and became a masterpiece of

the chamber music repertoire. The concerti gained widespread popularity in

Handel’s lifetime, due to transcriptions for solo organ by John Walsh (1705-

1740), which were used by church organists throughout England and eventually 

throughout the world. In the fifth Concerto grosso, Handel explores the contrast

between a concertino group (two violin soloists, one cello soloist, and a continuo

instrument) and the ripieno (full orchestra). Always an ingenious borrower,

Handel turned for the two opening movements ofthe concerto to his own

Odefor Saint Cecilia's Day (also 1739), using the same overture with sharp

dotted rhythms and fugue that he had borrowed from music by his Austrian

contemporary Gottlieb Muffat (1690-1770). The third movement, a lively jig,

recalls English dance traditions, while the fourth (Largo) and fifth (Allegro)

are both in the style ofthe concerti grossi ofCorelli and other seventeenthcentury Italian composers.

Prolific when it came to piano sonatas, songs, and symphonies, Franz

Schubert wrote only two pieces resembling concerti: Concert Piecefor Violin

and Orchestra, D. 345; and Rondofor Violin and Strings, D. 438. The latter is

the masterpiece among Schubert’s works for a solo or obbligato orchestral

instrument. The Rondo begins with an Adagio preface and launches into an

Allegro that demands a virtuoso display oftechnique from the violin. Modeled 

stylistically after the final movements ofWolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s violin 

concerti, the Allegro contains three primary themes. Schubert explores key

areas related by thirds and builds to a delightful F major conclusion.

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A gregarious and affable pianist and composer, Edvard Grieg enjoyed

fame and prestige throughout Europe during his lifetime. Early in his career, 

he worked as a conductor and toured extensively as a concert pianist. In 1885,

having established himself as a composer, he stopped touring and took up

residence in Troldhaugen, an idyllic estate on the outskirts ofBergen, Norway,

where he found solitude and comfort during the last two decades ofhis life.

As Grieg put his native Norway on the musical map, Ludvig Holberg

(1684-1754) brought it to prominence in the field ofliterature. During

Holberg’s lifetime, Norway was part ofthe Kingdom of Denmark, and works

in French and German dominated the kingdom’s literary landscape. Danish

served as a vernacular alternative for hymns and ballads, and Norwegian was

spoken only in those provinces that had once constituted an independent

Norway in the fifteenth century. Holberg produced histories, stage comedies,

satirical poetry, and philosophy, and his writings often accentuated the

uniqueness ofhis childhood home, Bergen, as opposed to the prevailing

cosmopolitan culture of Denmark.

In the 1880s, when it was time to celebrate the bicentennial of Holberg’s

birth, Norway was a part of Sweden, and most Norwegians were restless for

independence. They saw a celebration of Holberg’s life and work as a means

of emphasizing Norway’s uniqueness. Grieg’s participation in this process

commenced as early as 1878, when he contributed financially toward a statue

of Holberg in Bergen, composed a cantata for its unveiling, and wrote a

piano suite titled From Flolberg’s Time: Suite in Olden Style. He arranged the

suite for strings the following year and released it for publication in 1884, the

Holberg bicentennial year. Intended to recall musical devices from Holberg’s

lifetime, the suite thoroughly embodies the baroque style.

Famous today for originating the twelve-tone compositional technique

and founding the revolutionary Second Viennese School, Austrian composer

Arnold Schoenberg first established himselfin Vienna with tonal works— 

primarily songs and chamber music for strings. His first piece ofresounding

significance, Verklarte Nacht (Transfigured Night) is the result ofintense inspiration, produced in just three weeks’ time. Inspired by Richard Dehmel’s (1863—

1920) poem, Weib und Welt (Woman and World), the tone poem followed

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close on the heels ofthe first encounter between Schoenberg and Mathilde

von Zemlinsky, the sister ofhis teacher, Alexander von Zemlinsky, who would

eventually become his wife. Composed in 1899, Verklarte Nacht is often cited

as the last great gasp ofnineteenth-century romanticism in music.

Like the poem, which has five stanzas, Schoenberg’s work follows an

informal five-movement structure. The poem begins with an image ofthe

night, as two people walk through a bare, cold wood. A woman’s voice speaks,

confessing and lamenting to her betrothed that the child she carries comes

from another man. A decidedly more optimistic man’s voice speaks ofthe

beauty, power, and warmth ofthe night, urging her to release her burdens

and accept the child as a union ofthe couple’s love.

In his musical rendition ofthis tender exchange, Schoenberg fuses the

formal mastery ofJohannes Brahms with the harmonic adventurousness of

Richard Wagner. The resulting voice is Schoenberg’s own—richly contrapuntal and highly chromatic, though still tonal. The piece opens with a static

passage in D minor and ventures into harmonically vague territory, often

hinting at D as a center. The D major arrival at the work’s midpoint corresponds with the man’s warm, loving response, restoring a temporary feeling

ofstability. The work concludes with shimmering string harmonics and

running arpeggios to depict the couple walking offto begin their new,

unified life.

Program notes by Michael Jacko, concert assistant, National Gallery ofArt

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