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

The Sixty-seventh Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,700th Concert

National Gallery String Quartet

Claudia Chudacoff and Teri Lazar, violin

Osman Kivrak, viola

Diana Fish, cello

With

Menahem Pressler, pianist

January 4, 2009

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Performed without intermission

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Piano Quartet in G Minor, K. 478 (1785)

Allegro

Andante

Rondo

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

Piano Quintet in E-fiat Major, op. 44 (1842)

Allegro brillante

In modo d’una Marcia: Un poco largamente

Scherzo: Molto vivace

Finale: Allegro ma non troppo

The Musicians

MENAHEM PRESSLER

Menahem Pressler has firmly established himself as one ofthe world’s most

accomplished and honored musicians, whose distinguished career spans

more than five decades. (His first concert at the National Gallery took place

in 1953). His skills as a chamber and solo performer have brought him to all

ofthe world’s major cultural capitals. His musical precision and knowledge

ofpiano and chamber music literature have also earned him an international

reputation as a remarkable teacher.

Born in Magdeburg, Germany, in 1923, Pressler received most of his

musical training in Israel, to which his family, fleeing the Nazis, immigrated

in 1939. He holds honorary doctoral degrees from both the University of

Nebraska and the University of Kansas. In 1994 he was honored with

Chamber Music America’s Distinguished Service Award, and in 1998 he

received the prestigious Gramophone Lifetime Achievement Award. Elected 

to the American Academy ofArts and Sciences in October 2000, Pressler

has also received England’s Record ofthe Year Award, four Grammy nominations, Musical America’s Ensemble ofthe Year in 1997 with the Beaux

Arts Trio, and the German Recording Award. In addition to over fifty recordings with the Beaux Arts Trio, Pressler has produced more than thirty solo 

recordings ofworks by a wide range of composers, from Bach to Ben Haim.

In 1955 Pressler cofounded the Beaux Arts Trio with Daniel Guilet

and Bernard Greenhouse. It became one ofthe most enduring and widely 

acclaimed chamber music ensembles ofmodern times, and has been

credited with giving rise to the enormous popularity ofthe piano trio

repertoire. The trio had its final performance at Tanglewood—where it

had performed its debut in 1955 —on August 21, 2008.

When not on tour, giving solo performances, or teaching master classes,

Pressler can be found in his studio at Indiana University in Bloomington, 

where he holds the rank of distinguished professor. He appears at the National 

Gallery by arrangement with Melvin Kaplan, Inc., ofBurlington, Vermont.

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NATIONAL GALLERY STRING QUARTET

The National Gallery String Quartet has performed regularly at the Gallery

since its debut in 1995. In addition to standard quartet repertoire, the group

presents rarely-heard masterpieces of chamber music. The musicians also

perform under the name Sunrise Quartet, and in that capacity they have been

recognized with a Chamber Music America residency at the Duke Ellington 

School ofthe Arts as well as with residencies at the Concerts at the Beach

in Delaware and the Davies Concert Series in Camp Springs, Maryland. With 

perfectly matched skills, the first and second violinists are able to change

places, a practice that is rare among string quartets.

Violinist Claudia Chudacoff appears frequently as a soloist and chamber

musician in the Baltimore-Washington area. In addition to her position

as the newly-appointed concertmaster ofthe u.s. Marine Band’s White

House Chamber Orchestra, Chudacoffis the concertmaster ofthe Alexandria Symphony Orchestra and the National Gallery Orchestra. A member of

both the Sunrise Quartet and the National Gallery String Quartet, she has

performed regularly in numerous venues and concert series in Washington,

DC, including the Contemporary Music Forum, the Embassy Series, the

Fessenden Ensemble, the Holocaust Memorial, and National Musical Arts. 

She is featured on an Albany Records cd of chamber music by Erich Korngold, and was recently seen in a broadcast for West Virginia public television

with the Sunrise Quartet. She has also been heard a number oftimes on

American Public Media’s Performance Today.

Violinist Teri Lazar has performed as a soloist and chamber musician

in Europe and the Middle East as well as in the United States. She is the

concertmaster ofthe Virginia Chamber Orchestra and performs with the

Richmond Chamber Players and in Currents, a chamber music series also 

based in Richmond. She earned a doctor ofmusic degree from The Catholic

University ofAmerica and teaches violin at American University, where

she is a musician in residence. Lazar has recorded chamber music for the

Albany, Centaur, Klavier, and North/South Consonance labels and has been

heard on American Public Media’s Performance Today.

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Violist Osman Kivralc is a winner ofthe National Scholarship Competition

in Turkey and the Baltimore Chamber Music Awards. He has performed at the

Spoleto Festival in Charleston, South Carolina, and has toured Italy and other

parts ofEurope as a chamber musician. He performs with the Richmond

Chamber Players and in Currents, and teaches at American University as a

musician in residence. A graduate of The Catholic University ofAmerica, 

where he earned a doctor ofmusic degree, Kivrak is a composer as well as a

performer. His compositions were recently recognized with awards from the

Maryland State Arts Council and the Maryland-National Capital Parks and

Planning Commission.

Cellist Diana Fish came to Washington, DC, in 1994 to become a member

ofthe Marine Chamber Orchestra of “The President’s Own” United States

Marine Band, in which she currently serves as assistant principal cellist. She

graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music, where she studied with Orlando

Cole, and continued her work at the graduate level at Indiana University, where

she studied with Janos Starker. Fish has been the principal cellist ofConcert 

Artists ofBaltimore, with whom she performed as soloist in Beethoven’s Triple

Concerto for piano, violin, and cello. She has also appeared as soloist with the

Marine Chamber Orchestra in Victor Herbert’s Cello Concerto in E Minor. A

charter member ofthe Sunrise Quartet and the National Gallery Chamber

Players String Quartet, Fish has been performing with both ensembles for the

past fourteen years.

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Program Notes

When Mozart was commissioned to write three piano quartets in 1785 by his

publisher-friend Franz Anton Hoffmeister, the piano quartet was a relatively 

unheard-ofidiom. Mozart tackled the new challenge by scoring for doubled

instruments, with the strings and the piano alternating as the prominent

tone color. The technical challenges ofthe piece made it too difficult for 

amateurs to play, with the result that it did not sell well. Hoffmeister paid

Mozart for the Quartet in G Minor according to their agreement, but did not

ask him to complete the commission for a second or third piano quartet.

Mozart used the G minor key for his most dramatic works, and this

piece is no exception. The striking opening passage, for all four instruments,

sets the tone for the first movement. Filled with virtuosic piano writing, the

Allegro is alternately agitated and lyrical, concluding with another strong

unison passage. Cast in the relative major key—B-flat, the second movement (Andante) continues the unsettled feeling established in the first

movement. The spirited Rondo returns to G major, and despite several dips

into the darker keys of G minor and E minor, it is playful and bright.

Written in 1842 (the year that later became known as Robert Schumann’s “year of chamber music”), the Piano Quintet in E-fiat Major, op. 44,

is probably the first ofits kind, and is still considered to be among the best

ever written. After having completed three string quartets in the same year,

Schumann took things a step further and decided to add his own instrument, the piano, to the mix. The dedicatee and first pianist to play it in

public was his beloved wife, Clara Wieck Schumann, who was a gifted

concert pianist. The quintet was a great success, and served to validate

Schumann as a composer of note in the eyes of his contemporaries.

The first movement begins with a strong, declamatory statement, which is

expanded upon rhythmically and harmonically in true classical sonata form. 

The march ofthe second movement is best described as a funeral march with a

slightly brighter second theme. The Scherzo is Mendelssohnian in style, filled

with ascending and descending scales. It contains two contrasting trios.

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Starting unexpectedly in the relative minor key, the final movement concludes

the work grandly, as it presents periods oflyricism and great agitation and a

double fugue as the coda.

Program notes by Danielle DeSwert

Next Week at the National Gallery of Art

Ma’alot Quintet

Stephanie Winker, flutist

Ulf-Guido Schafer, clarinetist

Christian Wetzel, oboist

Volker Tessmann, bassoonist

Volker Grewel, horn

Music by Barber, Mendelssohn, Piazzolla, and other composers

Presented in conjunction with “Mendelssohn on the Mall”

This concert will be preceded by a preconcert talk 

on Mendelssohn and the visual arts

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Preconcert talk at 6:00 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Concert at 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court