ing it the aura of an improvisation. The second movement has

been eloquently described by Beethoven’s biographer Adolph

Bernhard Marx (1795-1866):“[It] opens witha chorale...[that]

awakens memories ofmanya devotional melody to which we have 

opened up our desolate and fearful soul under the oppression of

life. It isa profound introversion, addressing us from outside and

filling the soul within. But this chorale is only one aspect of the

content. It is...as if, ona nocturnal walk, one heard the solemn

song of the faithful softly re-echo [ing] froma distant and barely

visible church,a song of penitence and fear of eternal death, and

felt profoundly involved with what [was being sung].”A transi­

tional passage advances immediately to the third movement {Alle­

gro; allegrofugato) that features skillful contrapuntal devices, pre­

saging the polyphonic style found later in Beethoven’s Ninth Sym­

phony, Missasolemnis, and last string quartets.

Schnittke’s Second Cello Sonata is dedicated to Mstislav

Rostropovich, for whom the composer also wrote his moving Sec­

ondCello Concerto in 1990. The sonata has five movements, each

clearly separated from the other. The work begins solemnly and

without tempo, with soaring melodic figures in the cello.A fastmoving Allegro follows, in which cello and piano play equal roles.

In the ensuing Largo, on the other hand, the piano assumes the

task of providing the chordal underpinning, while the fourth

movement resembles the first Allegro in construction and charac­

ter. The work comes to

a close witha static Lento, consisting of

onlya few half and whole notes, that dies away ona single note

from the cello.

Of the Four Piecesfor Cello andPiano, Pezzo capriccioso, Opus 62 is

Tchaikovsky’s own arrangement ofa piece for cello and orchestra.

Melodie is from Souvenir d'un lieu cher, Opus 42, originally for violin

and piano. The other two were originally solo piano pieces:

Meditation (from Dix-huitmorceaux, Opus 12), transforms its repeated

theme with forceful dissimilarity, harking back to the slow move­

ment ofTchaikowsky’s Fifth Symphony; and the Humoresque (from

Deux morceaux, Opus 10), with its buoyant beginning and ending,

which has as its centerpiecea florid French folk song that

Tchaikovsky purportedly first heard duringa trip to Nice.

-Program notes by Elmer Booze, with notes on Schnittke by

Helmut Peters, translated from the German by Stephen Ackert

The Fifty-seventh Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and E LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2303d Concert

DAVID and TATJANA GERINGAS

Cello and piano

Sunday Evening, March 21, 1999

SevenO’clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
PROGRAM

Leonard Bernstein Three Meditations from “Mass”

(1918-1990) (1977)

Lento assai, molto sostenuto

On a Sequence by Beethoven:

Andante sostenuto

Presto; molto adagio

Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata No. 2 in D Major

(1770-1827) Opus 102 (1815)

Allegro con brio

Adagio con molto sentimento

d’affetto

Allegro; allegro fugato

INTERMISSION

Alfred Schnittke Sonata No. 2

(1934-1998) (1993-1994)

Senza tempo

Allegro

Largo

Allegro

Lento

Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky Four Pieces for Cello and Piano

(1840-1893)

Meditation, Opus 72, No. 5 (1893)

Melodie, Opus 42, No. 3 (1878)

Humoresque, Opus 10, No. 2 (1871)

Pezzo capriccioso, Opus 62 (1888)

Born into a musical family, Lithuanian cellist David Geringas studied at the renowned Moscow Conservatory ofMusic under Mstislav

Rostropovich. The gold medal winner in the 1970 International

Tchaikovsky Competition, he moved to Germany in 1975, where

he began his international career under the sponsorship of the

Herbert von Karajan Foundation. Geringas’ enormous repertoire

includes works from early baroque to contemporary. He has been a

pioneer in introducing the music ofmany Russian avant-garde composers to the West, including Sofia Gubaidulina, Edison Denisov, 

Alfred Schnittke, and Viktor Suslin, many ofwhom have dedicated

works to him. For his special commitment to contemporary music,

Geringas received the KulturaktuellPrize in 1992 from the Cultural

Association ofSchleswig-Holstein in Germany. In May ofthis year,

he continues his pioneering efforts with the world premiere of the

Cello Concerto by the Estonian composer Lepo Sumera. In 2000, 

Geringas will perform a newwork by the Russian composerAlexander

Raskatov.

Pianist Tatjana Geringas (nee Schatz) was born in Moscow into

a family of musicians. She began her piano studies at age five with

her father, a former student of the renowned Russian pedagogue

Heinrich Neuhaus. Upon being admitted to the Moscow Conservatory, Tatjana became in turn a pupil of Neuhaus and, after his

death, continued her studies with his son Stanislav. While a student, she met David Geringas, and they often performed together

for Mstislav Rostropovich. As reported in Stuttgart’s Suddeutsche

Zeitung. “Tatjana Schatz Geringas is an ideal piano partner. She has an 

admirable [technique] and at the same time an inborn presence.”

From Bernstein’s Mass, defined on its title page as a “theatre piece

for singers, players, and dancers,” the Three Meditations have been

transcribed for cello and piano from the original version for cello

and orchestra. Functioning as the interlude between the Confession

and Gloria movements ofMass, the first meditation uses the upper

register of the cello to execute the opening theme, with the piano

accompaniment imitating the expressive sounds ofthe strings, percussion, and organ. The second meditation, an interlude between

the Gloria and Epistle movements, utilizes a pizzicato theme, followed by five variations. When the text that is associated with this

theme reaches the word “Bruder” (brothers), a reference to the last

movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony is made by way of an A

major triad. The third meditation utilizes dance and choral segments

taken from Mass and brings the set to a dramatic conclusion.

Beethoven’s Sonata in D Major, Opus 102, No. 2 opens with a movement in which the sonata form is developed somewhat freely, giv-