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

cover: Rembrandt van Rijn, Return ofthe Prodigal Son (detail), 1636, etching on laid paper, 

National Gallery ofArt, Washington, Gift of Ruth B. Benedict in memory of

William S. Benedict and in honor ofthe 50th anniversary ofthe National Gallery of Art

The Sixty-seventh Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,725th Concert

Amor Artis Chamber Choir and Chamber Orchestra

Johannes Somary, conductor

April 19, 2009

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1525-1594)

Two motets

Alma Redemptoris Mater

Sicut cervus (Psalm 42)

George Frideric Handel (1685-1759)

Dixit Dominus (Psalm no)

1. Dixit Dominus—Chorus

2. Virgam virtutis—Alto solo

3. Tecum principium—Soprano solo

4. Juravit Dominus—Chorus

5. Dues sacerdos—Chorus

6. Dominus a dextris tuis—Soloists and chorus

7. De torrente in via bibet—Duet and male chorus

8. Gloria Patri—Chorus

Soloists: Cynthia Wallace, Megan Friar, Jonathan Goodman,

and Richard Holmes

Johannes Somary (b. 1935)

The Prodigal Son 

Text by Anthony Stein

Part I — Departure

Part II —Discoveries

Part III— Return

Part IV—Reconciliation

Father: John Rose

Younger Son: Michael Streinberger

Elder Son: Richard Holmes
The Musicians

AMOR ARTIS

Amor Artis is a distinctive chamber chorus and orchestra based in New York

City. The ensemble has achieved considerable recognition internationally

through its many concerts and extensive discography, encompassing more

than fifty recordings. It specializes in balancing well-known favorites with 

important works rarely heard. One ofthe first and foremost presenters in New

York oflesser-known baroque masterpieces, Amor Artis has distinguished

itselfin this area and is proud to have stimulated an interest in this repertoire

on the part of a number of choirs in the United States.

JOHANNES SOMARY

Beginning his forty-eighth year as music director ofAmor Artis, Johannes

Somary has conducted the English Chamber Orchestra, the Irish Chamber

Orchestra, the New Orleans Symphony, the Polish Television and Radio

Orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic

Orchestra, and XXI Sajandi Orkester in Tallinn, Estonia. He has participated

in many international festivals in Croatia, Greece, Israel, Spain, and Switzerland. His discography includes more than sixty recordings, four ofwhich

received Stereo Review’s Record ofthe Year award and three of which were

first recordings of Handel oratorios. As a composer, Somary has received

commissions from the Jefferson Music Festival, the Blessed Sacrament

Fathers, and the Benedictine Monastery of San Anselmo in Rome. His

Taroko Concerto for Violin and Orchestra was recorded in Saint Petersburg,

Russia, for Albany Records, and his dramatic cantata The Prodigal Son,

commissioned by the Universal Sacred Music Foundation, was premiered

in spring 2008 in New York to great acclaim. Since coming to New York

in 1959, Somary has served as choirmaster and music director in several 

churches, including Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. He currently teaches at the

College of Mount Saint Vincent, and serves as conductor ofThe Fairfield 

County Chorale in Connecticut, which last month recorded The Seasons

by Haydn for Lyrichord.

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Program Notes

Born Giovanni Pierluigi in the Roman suburb of Palestrina in 1525, the

composer Palestrina assumed the place-name ofhis birth, as was the custom.

He worked as resident composer and choir director in a number of churches,

including the Sistine Chapel and Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome. He married

twice, had children and grandchildren, lost most ofthem to the epidemics of

his time, and for a while ran a fur business. He was a prolific composer—not

a trailblazer, but rather the summation ofhis era in choral music, known as 

the “late” or “high” Renaissance. His own style purged music ofthe complexities that had been creeping into general usage at the end ofthe Renaissance.

Alma Redemptoris Mater is a masterpiece that paraphrases the Gregorian chant

to which this text was usually sung in his day, and it does so with true peace, 

serenity, and textual clarity. Palestrina’s use of expansive melodic lines with

well balanced curves—the rising and falling ofthe lines—is nowhere better

illustrated than in the justly celebrated motet Sicut cervus.

In the words ofmusicologist Paul Henry Lang, “ Dixit Dominus is the

diploma ofHandel’s Italian studies.” Although a work ofhis youth, composed

in Rome in April 1707, it has the power and grandeur that is the hallmark of

the English oratorios oflater years. The work is a setting of Psalm 109 (Psalm

110 in some translations ofthe Bible). The text is that ofthe opening psalm

sung at Vespers. Occasional appearances ofthe psalm tone as a cantusfirmus

and a felicitous blend ofhomophony and polyphony with magnificent use

ofsuspensions illustrate the influence that the music ofthe Roman Catholic

Church (ifnot its theology) had on Handel during his four years in Italy.

Handel’s fondness for the work is revealed by the fact that he recycled one of

its movements more than three decades later, giving it an English text in his 

oratorio Israel in Egypt. The length ofthis magnificently festive psalm suggests

that it may have been designed for performance in concert, rather than in

church. Its eight movements, scored for five-part chorus, soloists (emanating

from the choral ensemble), two violins, two violas, and continuo are deliciously 

diverse and rich in both character and texture.

5
On my first visit to Saint Petersburg, Russia, in summer 2000, I stood in

ecstasy before Rembrandt’s extraordinary The Prodigal Son in the Hermitage

Museum. As I gazed at length, I began to wonder about what went on in

the mind ofthe older brother. Not long after that encounter with the painting, I came up with the burning desire to write a dramatic cantata featuring

both brothers and the father with a chorus of onlookers. For a libretto, I

went to my friend Anthony Stein, who provided a text that endowed the

chorus with a triple role: not only were the choristers observers, but the men

singing by themselves became the narrators, and the women singing by

themselves became a kind ofmystical spirit speaking to each ofthe three

protagonists, who would respond to them in turn with the music of a psalm

tone. In the four movements ofthis cantata—Departure, Discoveries, Return,

and Reconciliation—the music moves gradually from the most pungent

dissonance to a relatively serene consonance.

Program Notes by Johannes Somary

6

Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

Geringas Baryton Trio

Music by Haydn and German composers

April 26, 2009

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court