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

handover, md 20785

www.nga.gov D o

The Sixty-sixth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,680th Concert

Judith Ingolfsson, violinist

Vladimir Stoupel, pianist

June 15, 2008

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Sonate pour violon et piano (1927)

Allegretto

Blues (Moderato)

Perpetuum mobile (Allegro)

Ravel

La Valse (version for piano solo) (1920)

INTERMISSION

Haflidi Hallgrimsson (b. 1941)

Offertofor Violin Solo, op. 13

Rita3 I Sand (Written in Sand)

Linur An Or3a (Lines Without Words)

Flug Timans (The Flight ofTime)

Allt A3 hvi Salmur (Almost a Flymn)

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Rondo brilliantfor Violin and Piano in B Minor, op. 70, D. 895

The Musicians

Judith Ingolfsson, the 1998 Gold Medalist ofthe International Violin

Competition ofIndianapolis, has established herselfworldwide as an artist

of uncompromising musical maturity, extraordinary technical command,

and charismatic performance style. She made her debut as an orchestral 

soloist in Germany at the age of eight and has since performed on some

ofthe world’s most notable stages, including Carnegie Hall, the John F.

Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia, Konzerthaus Berlin, and the Mann Concert Auditorium in Tel Aviv.

She has been heard with the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, the 

National Symphony Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the symphony orchestras of Indianapolis and Saint Louis. Outside the United

States she has performed with the Alfred Schnittke Philharmonic Orchestra

in Russia, the Bohemian Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra in the Czech

Republic, the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra, the Neubrandenburger

Philharmonie in Germany, and the Royal Chamber Orchestra ofTokyo.

Ingolfsson has collaborated with many acclaimed conductors, including

Raymond Leppard, Wolfgang Sawallisch, Gerard Schwarz, and Leonard

Slatkin. A frequent guest soloist with the Iceland Symphony, Ingolfsson 

joined that orchestra on its fifteen-city North American tour in 2000. Her

recital performances have taken her throughout the United States and 

around the world, including performances in Macao, Panama, Puerto Rico,

and Reykjavik. With pianist Vladimir Stoupel, she has played in Brooklyn’s

famed Bargemusic series, as well as in Germany, Italy, Poland, and Switzerland. An avid chamber musician, she has collaborated with the Avalon and

Miami String Quartets, and has appeared with the Chamber Music Society

Two of Lincoln Center. Among the American music festivals in which she 

has appeared are the Appalachian Summer, Cape and Islands Chamber

Music, Grand Teton, and Strings in the Mountains festivals. In Europe, she

has been a featured performer at Finland’s Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival,

Germany’s Bodensee Festival, Switzerland’s Menuhin Festival, and the 

Orlando Festival in The Netherlands.

3
Ingolfsson is a faculty member at the Staatliche Hochschule fur Musik

und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart. She plays a Lorenzo Guadagnini violin,

crafted in 1750. Judith Ingolfsson and Vladimir Stoupel appear at the

National Gallery by arrangement with Parker Artists of New York City.

VLADIMIR STOUPEL

Russian-bom French pianist Vladimir Stoupel has established himselfworldwide as an artist ofextraordinary versatility, uncompromising musical intensity, 

and technical command. His emotionally charged interpretations span an

extraordinary large piano repertoire, including rarely heard compositions of

the post-war era and obscure composers ofthe twentieth century. A top 

prizewinner at the Geneva International Music Competition in 1986, Stoupel 

performs as soloist with many ofthe leading orchestras ofthe world, including

die Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra,

the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Gewandhaus Orchestra, Konzerthausorchestra Berlin, die Munich Symphony, the Russian State Orchestra,

the Staatskapelle Mainz, and die Staatskapelle Weimar. He is a regular guest

in such prestigious venues as the Alte Oper in Frankfurt am Main, Berlin 

Philharmonic Hall, Konzerthaus Dortmund, tire Grosse Musikhalle in Hamburg, the Rudolfinum in Prague, and die Tonhalle in Dusseldorf. Stoupel has

frequentiy performed at die New York Philharmonic's chamber music series

at Merkin and Avery Fisher Halls. He has participated in many festivals,

including the Berliner Festwochen; Festival La Grange de Meslay in Tours,

France; the Helsinki Festival; and Printemps des Arts in Monte Carlo. He has

collaborated with a number ofeminent conductors, among diem Leopold

Hager, Gunther Neuhold, and Christian Thielemann.

Stoupel’s extensive discography includes a critically acclaimed debut CD,

released in 1989 on die rpc label, featuring piano music of Shostakovich.

Odier recordings feature the complete works for piano solo ofArnold Schoenberg and a soon to be released recording ofthe complete piano sonatas of

Scriabin. His recording of die complete works for Viola and Piano by Henri

Vieuxtemps witii violist Thomas Selditz was awarded the “Preis der deutschen

Schallplattenkritik,” the highest German award for a CD recording, in 2003.

4

The Program

Maurice Ravel famously believed tiiat the violin and the piano were two

instruments that should not cohabit in the same piece. About the sonata on

today’s program, which took him four years to write, he said, “In the writing

ofthe Sonatafor Violin and Piano, two fundamentally incompatible instruments, I assumed the task, far from bringing their differences into equilibrium, of emphasizing their irreconcilability through their independence.”

This approach led Ravel to exploit each instrument to its fullest capability.

By the time Ravel wrote die sonata, it was late in his career, and he was

fully established as the leading composer in France. In his later years, he came

under the induence ofAmerican jazz. He was a great admirer ofGeorge 

Gershwin and enjoyed incorporating the jazz style into his own compositions.

Though written in classical sonata form, the first movement ofthe sonata is

full ofparallel sevenths, a favorite harmonic touch ofjazz pianists. The second 

movement, Blues, could have come directiy out of a nightclub ofRavel’s day 

The final movement, perpetuum mobile, is a toccata ofsorts for the violin, with 

nonstop sixteenth notes for 179 consecutive measures.

A lover ofdance forms, both contemporary and historical, Ravel composed

several pieces designed around various dances, including Le Tombeau de

Couperin and Vaises nobles el sentimentales. In 1906 he conceived of an idea to

write a piece in homage to Johann Strauss Jr., whose music attracted him

because ofthejoie de vivre expressed by the waltz rhythm. This idea fell by the

wayside for many years, but upon his return to civilian life after serving as an

ambulance driver in World War 1, Ravel resumed work on his waltzes, beginning to compose La Valse in 1919 and completing it in spring 1920. Originally

written as a response to a commission from the great impresario Sergei

Diastiiilev, La Valse exists in three versions: die orchestral version, a version

for solo piano, and a version for two pianos, which was die one tiiat was first 

perfonned in public. Diaghilev rejected the score, causing an irreparable rift

between the two men, but the orchestral version almost immediately became

a part ofthe standard concert repertoire.

5
Haflidi Hallgrimsson is one ofthe most important figures in the twentiethcentury flowering ofIcelandic music. Bom in 1941 in the small town of

Akureyri on the north coast ofIceland, he began playing the cello at age ten

and studied in Reykjavik and at the Accademia Santa Cecilia in Rome. He

continued his studies in London with Derek Simpson at the Royal Academy 

of Music and was awarded the coveted Madame Suggia Prize in 1966. The

following year he began compositional studies with Alan Bush and Peter

Maxwell Davies. On leaving the Royal Academy, he remained in Britain, 

eventually making his home in Scotland, having been appointed principal

cellist oftire Scottish Chamber Orchestra. The following program note was

provided by tire composer for performances ofhis Offerto, which he wrote 

in 1991 in memory ofthe Icelandic painter Karl Kvaran (1924-1989).

“Offerto starts like a trembling hand writing an obituary in dry sand.

Saltandos [short strokes played with a bouncing bow], double-stops, and

long phrases rather empty of emotional content are notable features ofthis

movement, which seeks consolation in the only ‘fixed sounds,’ the rather

hollow sonority ofthe open strings.

In tiie second movement, the painter is at work in the silent studio. There

are double trills, sudden dramatic outbursts, fast runs, glissando passages, and

delicate staccatos. All these musical gestures suggest an ‘amplification’ ofthe

varied sounds the brushes make 011 the virgin canvas. Karl Kvaran was one of

the very few real abstract painters working in Iceland during the latter halfof

the twentieth century. I visited him regularly at his tiny flat on the top ofthe old

Post and Telecommunications building in the centre ofReykjavik. He was a

highly cultured man, warm, brave, and gentle, with a delicious sense ofhumor.

Over tire years wxe became good friends.

6

The third movement is fast and furious, and repeats and elaborates on

fragments that are developed in an almost obsessive manner. This is Baron

Miinchhausen flying on a cannonball. The tension keeps rising and reaches

the main climax in the extreme register ofthe violin, and after a short pause

comes to a soft, abrupt end.

In the last movement, bell-like pizzicatos and gentle lyrical phrases lead

gradually to a recitative-like passage, often in double-stops and octaves. A

harsh pizzicato on the E string interrupts the flow ofthe music several times

before it reaches the heights, only to fall back gently on to the lowest note on

the violin, the open G string.”

The first performance of Schubert’s Rondo brilliantfor Violin and Piano

received a cool reception, probably because the work does not conform to

any ofthe expectations that existed at tire time for works for the violin. 

Consisting ofjust one long movement, its free-ranging form makes it 

difficult to fathom on first hearing. Schubert scholar M. Frank Ruppert, the

author of Franz Schubert and the Rose-Cross Mystery, whose analysis ofthe

same composer’s String Quartet, D. 887, appeared in the program notes for 

the February 3, 2008, concert at the National Gallery, surmises that the

seemingly free form ofthe Rondo brillant derives from the fact that it was 

written with a poem in mind. One ofthe songs Schubert composed while

working on the Rondo is the Romanze des Richard Lowenherz, D. 907. The

text is a German version by Karl Ludwig Muller (1722-1804) of a portion of

The Crusader’s Return by Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832):

High deeds achieved ofknightly fame,

From Palestine the champion came;

The cross upon his shoulders borne,

Battle and blast had dimrn’d and torn.

Each dint upon his batter’d shield

Was token of a foughten field;

And thus, beneath his lady’s bowTer,

He sung, as fell the twilight hour:

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“Joy to the fair! —thy knight behold,

Return’d from yonder land of gold;

No wealth he brings, nor wealth can need, 

Save his good arms and battle-steed;

His spurs, to dash against a foe,

His lance and sword to lay him low;

Such all the trophies of his toil,

Such—and the hope ofTekla’s smile!

Joy to the fair! whose constant knight

Her favor fired to feats ofmight;

Unnoted shall she not remain,

Where meet the bright and noble train, 

Minstrel shall sing and herald tell:

‘Mark yonder maid of beauty well,

‘Tis she for whose bright eyes was won

The listed field of Aslcalon!

Note well her smile!—it edged the blade 

Which fifty wives to widows made,

When, vain his strength and Mahound’s spell,

Iconium’s turban’d Soldan fell.

Seest thou her locks, whose sunny glow

Halfshows, halfshades, her neck ofsnow?

Twines not ofthem one golden thread,

But for its sake a Paynim bled.’

Joy to the fair! —my name unknown,

Each deed, and all its praise thine own;

Then, oh, unbar this churlish gate,

The night dew falls, the hour is late.

Inured to Syria’s glowing breath,

I feel the north breeze chill as death;

Let grateful love quell maiden shame,

And grant him bliss who brings thee fame.”

The sequence ofmusical ideas in the Rondo corresponds to the sequence

ofideas in the poem, a detail that would have been unknown to most of

Schubert’s audience. Despite the reservations ofthe first hearers, the Rondo

was accepted by a publisher during Schubert’s lifetime and eventually

became a part ofthe standard repertoire for violin and piano.

9
Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

Washington Bach Consort

Music by members ofthe Bach family

June 22, 2008

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court