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 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

uwiv.ngfl.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.

COVER: Marc Chagall, Greeting Cardfor 1966,1965, lithograph in black on wove paper, 

National Gallery ofArt, Washington, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Gerhard E. Pinkus

qAU

The Seventy-second Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,974th Concert

National Gallery ofArt Orchestra

Vladimir Lande, guest conductor

Xiayin Wang, pianist

Russian-American New Year Concert

January 5, 2014

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857)

Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla (1842)

Sergei Rachmaninoff(1873-1943)

Piano Concerto no. 2 in C Minor, op. 18 (1901)

Moderate

Adagio sostenuto—Piu animate

Allegro scherzando

INTERMISSION

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Symphony no. 5 in E Minor, op. 64 (1888)

Andante—Allegro con anima

Andante cantabile

Valse: Allegro moderate

Finale: Andante maestoso—Allegro Vivace

Moderate assai e molto maestoso

The Musicians

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART ORCHESTRA

The National Gallery ofArt Orchestra was founded in 1943, using a small

cadre ofmusicians 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, George Mester, 

Jose Serebrier, and Alexander Titov.

VLADIMIR LANDE

Russian-born Vladimir Lande has guest-conducted the National Gallery

Orchestra on three occasions, most recently as the guest music director ofthe

National Gallery’s 64th American Music Festival (2009). He is also music

director of cosmic (Chamber Orchestra of Southern Maryland in Concert), the

Hopkins Symphony Chamber Orchestra, the Maryland Conservatory Orchestra, and the Washington Soloists Chamber Orchestra. In the 2012-2013 

season, Lande led Russia’s Saint Petersburg State Symphony Orchestra on its

tour of South Korea. Two years before, he took the orchestra on a twenty-fourconcert “Tour ofthe Americas” that included several stops in Latin America

and some ofthe United States’ most prestigious concert halls, among them

Alice Tully Hall in New York, Kimmel Hall in Philadelphia, MeyerhoffHall

in Baltimore, the National Gallery ofArt, and Symphony Hall in Boston. In

addition to his duties as principal guest conductor ofthe Saint Petersburg

State Symphony Orchestra, Lande regularly conducts the Donetsk Ballet

Company in Europe and the United States. He has conducted at the Ravello

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Festival in Italy and since 1996 has been principal guest conductor ofthe

Bachanalia Festival Orchestra in New York. In 2004 he was invited to conduct 

the opening concert ofthe internationally renowned White Nights Festival in

Saint Petersburg's Grand Philharmonic Hall.

Recent recordings made under Lande’s direction include cds of Schubert’s

Unfinished and Great symphonies, a CD ofAmerican composer James Aikman’s music, and a seventeen-CD cycle ofthe complete symphonic works of

the little-known Russian composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg (1919-1996). In 2011

Lande launched a series ofvideo recordings for Naxos titled “Concerts from the

Palaces of Saint Petersburg.” An oboist as well as a conductor, Lande was the

youngest person ever to occupy the principal oboe chair in the Baltimore Opera

Orchestra. He continues his playing career as oboist ofthe Poulenc Trio.

XIAYIN WANG

Praised by Allan Kozinn ofthe New York Times for her “nuanced, spirited, 

crisply articulated” performance at Alice Tully Hall (2010), pianist Xiayin

Wang returned to that same venue in 2011 for a solo recital. Later that year,

she appeared in Vienna’s Mozart-Saal, performing Richard Danielpour’s

Concerto no. 4for Piano and Orchestra with the Vienna Chamber Orchestra

under the baton of Philippe Entremont.

In 2010 Wang released a recording ofthe piano music of Earl Wild,

including his celebrated Gershwin arrangements, on the Chandos label.

The recording was welcomed by journalist Scott Noriega, who wrote:

“[Wild’s pieces] require the type ofpianistic abilities that he himself possessed. ... Thankfully, pianist Xiayin Wang brings with her these qualities 

and then some” (Fanfare magazine). Wang’s other CD releases include a disc

of Franck and Strauss sonatas with violinist Catherine Manoukian; The

Enchanted Garden and Preludes, Books 1 and 11, by Richard Danielpour; solo

piano works by Bach, Gershwin, Mozart, Ravel, and Scriabin; and a highly

praised recording of Brahms’ quartets for piano and strings with the Amity

Players. Xiayin Wang appears at the National Gallery courtesy of International Performing Artists.

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Program Notes

Considered the father of Russian concert music, Mikhail Glinka combined

a Russian upbringing and Western European training to synthesize native

Russian folk music with the prevailing compositional techniques ofhis time.

His work would later influence nationalistic composers Mussorgsky, Borodin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich. Glinka’s second and

final opera, Ruslan and Ludmilla, received a lukewarm response at first, due

to the fact that Russian audiences were developing a taste for Italian opera,

and deemed Glinka’s style old-fashioned. Based on a fairy tale by Pushkin,

the libretto tells the tale ofRuslan, a hero who overcomes fantastic adversity

and experiences wild adventures as he attempts to rescue his betrothed,

Ludmilla, from an evil dwarf, Chernomor.

The opening act of Ruslan and Ludmilla is prefaced by an ebullient

overture that contains thematic connections to the opera: the powerful tutti

chords, frenetic scales, and exuberant theme ofthe opening measures

anticipate the wedding scene. The second theme—in the bassoons, violas,

and cellos—comes from Ruslan’s second-act love song. Glinka restates

and varies each ofthese themes in the development ofthe overture, and

in the coda introduces a briefwhole-tone scale in the low-pitched instruments to represent the evil dwarf. The tempo increases, and the coda 

dashes to an energetic conclusion to the overture that sets the stage for

the opera’s opening scene.

Sergei Rachmaninoff composed his Second Piano Concerto following

the absolute lowest point of his depression- and anxiety-prone life. After the 

embarrassing 1897 premiere ofhis First Symphony under the baton of a

reportedly drunken Alexander Glazunov, Rachmaninofffound himselfin

a three-year battle with writer’s block and alcoholism. Only with the help 

ofhis doctor friend Nikolai Dahl (1860-1939) did Rachmaninoffregain his 

confidence. Dahl specialized in curing alcoholism through hypnotherapy,

5
and his cure for Rachmaninoffincluded assigning him to write a piano 

concerto. The treatment worked so effectively that it enhanced the composer’s

inherent ability to come up with memorable tunes and a smooth sense of

musical form, skills that remained with him throughout the rest ofhis life.

Dedicated to Dahl, the Piano Concerto no. 2 became Rachmaninoffs new 

calling card and made both men world-famous.

Composed in a four-month span in 1888, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony,

like the Rachmaninoff concerto, followed a period ofturmoil and selfdoubt in the composer’s life. In 1878 he had penned his Fourth Symphony

and completed work on the opera Yevgeny Onegin, both ofwhich lifted his 

international reputation to a new level. But the success ofthese earlier 

works coincided with his failing marriage to Antonina Miliukova, which 

triggered a ten-year-long symphonic dry spell. Early in 1888, Tchaikovsky

wrote to his brother, Modeste, ofhis artistic desperation: “To speak frankly,

I feel as yet no impulse for creative work. What does this mean? Have I

written myself out? No ideas, no inclination! Still, I am hoping to collect,

little by little, material for a symphony.” He began work that same month,

diligently and secretively. He felt good about his new symphony until its

premiere in Saint Petersburg, when he heard applause that he considered

more a polite response to his earlier body ofwork than uproarious enthusiasm for a new symphony. Tchaikovsky wrote to his patroness, Nadezhda 

von Meek: “I have come to the conclusion that (the Fifth Symphony) is a

failure. There is something repellent, something superfluous, patchy, and

insecure, which the public instinctively recognizes.” It was not long, however, before orchestras outside Russia performed the symphony. An inspired

performance ofit in 1889 in Hamburg convinced the brooding composer of

its worthiness, and it became a staple ofthe standard symphonic repertoire

within his lifetime.

6

The overarching structure ofTchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony is cyclic, a

form that he had explored previously in his Fourth Symphony. Introduced

by the clarinets with bare string accompaniment, the opening theme

undergoes various transformations as it recurs in each movement in the 

cyclic format. One might imagine that this theme expresses a negative

idea of unavoidable fate in the first two movements, but by the end ofthe

symphony, where it is transformed by its assignment to the brass, it captures the spirit ofunbridled triumph.

Program notes by Michael facko, music program assistant,

National Gallery ofArt

Next week at the National Gallery ofArt

National Gallery ofArt Orchestra

Andrew Simpson, guest conductor

Cine-concert

Music by Simpson for silent films by Buster Keaton and others

Presented in honor of Tell It with Pride:

The 54th Massachusetts Regiment and

Augustus Saint-Gaudens’ Shaw Memorial

January 12, 2014

Sunday, 6:30 pm

East Building Auditorium