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

The Sixty-fifth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,612th Concert

Mark Kosower, cellist

Jee-Won Oh, pianist

April 1, 2007

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983)

Cinco canciones populares argentinas, op. 10 (1943)

Chacarera 

Triste

Zamba 

Arrorro 

Gato

Karen Khachaturian (b. 1920)

Sonata (1967)

Recitativo (Adagio)

Inventio (Allegretto)

Aria (Andante)

Toccata (Allegro con fuoco)

Marco Stroppa (b. 1959)

Ay, There’s the Rub (2001)

INTERMISSION

Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)

Sonata no. 2 in D Major, op. 58 (1843)

Allegro assai vivace

Allegretto scherzando

Adagio

Molto allegro e vivace

The Musicians

MARK KOSOWER

Mark Kosower is one ofthe most distinguished cellists of his generation. 

Hailed by musicians and critics alike for his extraordinary instrumental

mastery, musical integrity, and purity of expression, he is the recipient of an

Avery Fisher Career Grant, awarded by Lincoln Center for the Performing 

Arts. A winner ofAstral Artistic Services’ 2002 National Auditions, Kosower

was presented in Astral’s Rising Stars series at the Kimmel Center for the

Performing Arts, in what was his Philadelphia recital debut. Kosower has

performed abroad as a soloist with the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra, the

China National Symphony Orchestra, the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, the Kansai Philharmonic Orchestra, the Kwazulu-Natal Philharmonic

Orchestra, the National Taiwan Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestre de

Paris. He has also appeared as a soloist in the United States with the Buffalo,

Dayton, and Florida philharmonic orchestras; the Alabama, Detroit, Florida,

Houston, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Minnesota, North Carolina, Omaha, 

Oregon, Phoenix, Seattle, and Toledo symphonies; the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; and the Ravinia Festival Orchestra, among many others. As

a recitalist, Kosower has performed at the Aspen Music Festival and the

Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in the Great Performers series at

Lincoln Center and Ravinia’s Rising Stars series, and in many of America’s

major cities. Also an active chamber musician, he has performed with the

Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. A graduate of Indiana University

and The Juilliard School, Kosower is currently professor of cello at the San

Francisco Conservatory of Music. He has recorded the Walton Cello Concerto under James DePreist for Delos, Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff piano 

trios with Ilya Itin and Igor Gruppman for vai, and music by Ginastera and 

an album ofworks by Hungarian composers with pianist Jee-Won Oh that

will be released in 2007 by Naxos.

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JEE-WON OH

Pianist Jee-Won Oh is an active chamber musician and soloist. She has

performed in Brazil, Europe, South Korea, and the United States, with solo

recitals and chamber music concerts in Chicago, Lubeck, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, New York, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Saint Paul, Salt Lake City, Salzburg, 

San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, Seoul, and Washington, DC. She has also

performed at such prestigious festivals as the Emen Musikdorf, the Park City

International Music Festival, the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, and the

Sitka Summer Music Festival. Oh regularly collaborates with her husband,

Astral cellist Mark Kosower, with whom she has concertized in the United

States and abroad. Her recent performances include recitals in the Great

Performers series at Lincoln Center and at Kumho Art Hall in Seoul, Merkin 

Concert Hall in New York, and the Sala Cecilia Meireles in Rio de Janeiro, 

and an appearance with the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. Oh was

the studio pianist of and assistant to the famed cellist Janos Starker for five

years and was associate instructor ofpiano at Indiana University from 1994

to 1998. She holds a master’s degree in piano performance from Indiana

University, where she studied with Shigeo Neriki and Gyorgy Sebok, and

a bachelor’s degree from Hanyang University in Seoul, where she was a

recipient ofthe Young Chang Piano Foundation scholarship.

Program Notes

Originally written for voice and piano, Alberto Ginastera’s Cinco canciones

populares argcntinas were composed during a period of political unrest in

Argentina, during which the composer signed a manifesto defending artistic

freedom and democratic principles, in protest ofJuan Peron’s policies. In

the fashion of his predecessors who drew upon folk music in their compositions, Ginastera borrowed from the folk songs and dances ofthe different

provinces and combined these elements with twentieth-century composition

practices. Each ofthe five songs represents a different traditional form. The

Chacarera, from chakra, meaning “the farm,” is a rapid dance in triple

4

meter from the central lowlands and northern Argentine interior. Literally

meaning “sad,” in this case Triste indicates a nostalgic song of unrequited

love. The Argentine Zamba bears no relation to the Brazilian samba but is

a descendant of an eighteenth-century Peruvian scarf dance. A traditional

lullaby, the Arrorro is the most true to its source; Ginastera left the text, the

melody, and the rhythm unaltered, and put an ostinato underneath the tune.

Finally, the Goto, or “cat dance,” received the highest praise when these

songs were premiered in Buenos Aires. A relative ofthe Spanish romanza,

this energetic, rhythmic dance was most popular in the late eighteenth and

early nineteenth centuries, in both urban and rural areas ofArgentina.

Karen Khachaturian, nephew ofthe famed Aram Khachaturian, studied composition with Nikolai Miaskovsky, Vissarion Shebalin, and Dmitry

Shostakovich as a young man at the Moscow Conservatory. A prolific composer, he has written works in almost every genre, ranging from solo piano

pieces to chamber music, and symphonies to oratorios and ballets. In 1967 

he wrote a sonata for violoncello and piano, which he dedicated to Mstislav

Rostropovich. The work is in four compact movements, with a slow-fastslow-fast layout that pays homage to the Italian sonata da chiesa, or “church

sonata.” In addition to the work’s neobaroque design, the titles ofthe movements trace their roots back to the baroque era (recitative, invention, aria,

and toccata). However, what is most revealing is the sonata’s contrapuntal

style, which expresses the complex, shifting emotions of Soviet existence.

The opening cello solo (Rccitativo) establishes a world of grief, disillusionment, and despair, to which the piano responds harshly. The dialogue

between the two instruments that begins in the Inventio possesses a bitter,

twisted, and biting sarcasm that is combined with an underlying fear. Once

again in the Aria, forces are juxtaposed: the dominant world ofintimacy,

love, and passion is interrupted by intense fear from time to time. Cruel

reality strikes in the Toccata, which swirls in a demonic fury ridden with hysteria. The ultimate display ofsarcasm occurs at the end ofthe sonata when

the piece suddenly ends in C major.

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Composer, researcher, and professor Marco Stroppa was born in Verona, 

Italy, on December 8, 1959. Stroppa studied composition at the Conservatories

ofVerona, Milan and Venice, and in 1982 he went to Paris at the invitation of

Pierre Boulez to work as a composer and researcher at the Institut de recherche et coordination acoustique-musique (ircam). He still teaches at ircam

as well as at the Conservatoire national superieur de musique et de danse de

Paris and the Musikhochschule Stuttgart. Ay, There’s the Rub for solo cello

was commissioned in 2001 for the International Rostropovich Cello Competition. The work is based on a quotation from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “To

Die, to sleep. To sleep—perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub.” Delicately

written, this piece evokes a striking world ofsounds as it employs every type 

ofharmonic available on a stringed instrument: natural, false, trilled, bowed, 

pizzicato (left and right hand), and sliding false harmonics, the last ofwhich

creates a “seagull” sound effect. In Ay, There’s the Rub, transformations and

interactions take place that blend elements together, creating a sort ofstream

of consciousness that crystallizes at the end.

Felix Mendelssohn’s compositions for solo instruments and chamber

ensembles make up a somewhat small portion of his total output, but they

demonstrate his development well since he wrote them throughout the

course ofhis career. Sonata no. 2 in D Major, op. 58, was written for his

brother, Paul, and came at a time in Felix’s life when he had suffered both

artistic and personal disappointments but was entering into a time full of

opportunity. The four-movement piece reflects the conflicting emotions he

encountered during those years.

Program notes on Ginastera and Mendelssohn by Danielle DeSwert

Program notes on Khachaturian and Stroppa by Mark Kosower

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Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

National Gallery Chamber Players

and the resident chamber ensemble ofthe Walters Art Museum,

Poulenc Trio

Vivaldi, Trio in A Minorfor Flute, Bassoon, and Piano

Rossini, Concert Fantasy on L’ltaliana in Algeri

Mozart, Quintetfor Piano and Wind Instruments

Prokofiev, Peter and the Wolf

April 8, 2007

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court