Ravel’s Tzigane (Gypsy) is an exotic and rhapsodic composition

for violin that traces its musical lineage back to Paganini and Liszt. A

bravura adaptation of the Hungarian rhapsody, Tzigane presents

extraordinary technical challenges for the violinist. It is fdled to the brim

with rapid harmonics and pizzicati, quadruple stops, and brilliant 

passages in perpetual motion. The many subtle changes in tempo, the

rhythmic figures, the straightforward harmony, and the frequent use of a

four-note Gypsy motif (E, F, G#, A) give Tzigane an authentic folk

flavor, but the clarity of Ravel’s workmanship raises the work to a

sublime level.

Program notes by Elmer Booze

The Sixty-second Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

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2471st Concert

ELMAR OLIVEIRA, violinist

ROBERT KOENIG,pianist

Presented in honor ofthe 25th anniversary ofthe East Building

ofthe National Gallery of Art

Sunday Evening, 9 November 2003

Seven O’clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
Program

Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata for Violin and Piano in D Major

(1770-1827) Op. 12, No. 1 (1797-1798)

Allegro con brio

Andante con moto

Rondo: Allegro

Ottorino Respighi

(1879-1936)

Sonata for Violin and Piano in B Minor

(1916-1917)

Moderato

Andante espressivo

Passacaglia: Andante moderato ma energico

Intermission

Sergey Prokofiev

(1891-1953)

Sonata No. 1 in F Minor 

Op. 80 (1938-1946)

Andante assai

Allegro brusco

Andante

Allegrissimo

Maurice Ravel

(1875-1937)

Tzigane

(1924)

The use ofcameras or recording equipment during

the performance is not allowed. Please he sure that cell

phones, pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off

For the convenience ofconcertgoers, the Garden Cafe

remains open until 6:30 p.m.

The Musicians

Among his generation’s most honored performers, Elmar Oliveira

remains the first and only American violinist to win the gold medal at

Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Competition. He was also the first violinist to

receive the coveted Avery Fisher Prize, and he captured first prizes at the

Naumburg International and the G. B. Dealey Competitions. The

Portuguese Order of Santiago is another of his many honors. With his

unsurpassed combination of impeccable artistry and old-world elegance,

Oliveira has become a familiar and much-admired figure at the world’s

foremost concert venues. Reviewing a recital given on the campus of the

University of Buffalo, Herman Trotter of The Buffalo News wrote:

“Oliveira’s technique was virtually flawless throughout....He gave a

dazzling performance of Ravel’s Tzigane that, from the raw and grainy

solo opening down to the incendiary pyrotechnics at the close, projected

a mixture of warmth and stridency. His rich middle register was

especially effective in conveying the verve ofthe fiery Gypsy melodies.”

Elmar Oliveira’s rigorous international itinerary includes

appearances in recital and as soloist with many of the world’s greatest

orchestras, including the Zurich Tonhalle, Cleveland, Philadelphia, and

Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestras. His repertoire is among the most

diverse of any of today’s preeminent violinists. One of the few who are

open to the entire spectrum of the violin world, Oliveira is constantly

expanding traditional repertoire boundaries as a champion of

contemporary music and rarely heard works ofthe past. He is a two-time

Grammy nominee for his CD of the Barber Violin Concerto with

Leonard Slatkin and the Saint Louis Symphony. His discography on the

Artek, Angel, SONY Masterworks, Vox, Delos, IMP, Ondine, and

Melodiya labels ranges from works by Bach and Vivaldi to the present.

The son of Portuguese immigrants, Elmar Oliveira was nine years

old when he began studying the violin with his brother John. He later

continued his studies with Ariana Bronne and Raphael Bronstein at the

Hartt College of Music and the Manhattan School of Music, from which

he received an honorary doctorate. He has served on the juries ofsome of

the most prestigious violin competitions, including those of Montreal and
Indianapolis, as well as the Naumburg and the Vianna da Motta

Competitions. He performs exclusively on an instrument known as the

Stretton, made between 1729 and 1731 by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesu,

and on an exact copy of the Guarneri made by Curtin and Alf in 1993.

Elmar Oliveira appears at the National Gallery by arrangement with

Cramer/Marder Artists of Lafayette, California.

Born in Saskatchewan, Canada, pianist Robert Koenig began his

formal training at the Vancouver Academy of Music with Lee Kum Sing

and Gwen Thompson. He later studied at the Banff School of Line Arts

and the Academie Musicale di Chigiana in Siena, Italy. Koenig has

received several awards from the Canadian government, including a

Canada Council Project Grant. He completed both his bachelor and

master of music degrees in accompanying at the Curtis Institute of Music

in Philadelphia, where he studied piano with Vladimir Sokoloff and

chamber music with Lelix Galimir and Karen Tuttle. Since then he has

established for himself a reputation as a much sought-after collaborative 

pianist and chamber musician. Among the prominent violinists with

whom Koenig has collaborated are Sarah Chang, Hilary Hahn, Pamela

Prank, Ida Kavafian, Elmar Oliveira, and Aaron Rosand. Robert Koenig

has recorded for the Artek, Ambassador, Biddulph, Cedille, CRI, Decca,

Eroica, and Naxos labels. In 2000 he was appointed assistant professor of

piano and chamber music at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

Program Notes

Beethoven dedicated the three sonatas contained in his Op. 12 to his

Italian composition teacher, Antonio Salieri (1750-1825), who spent

many years in Vienna as court kapellmeister, composer, and teacher. The

Sonata, Op. 12, No. 1, is a work of enormous energy, with passages

laden with resilient scales and arpeggios. The first movement (Allegro

con brio) begins with the two instruments playing in unison on the tonic

triad in D major. An unadorned melody is plaintively delivered as the

opening statement of the exposition. A key change to F major announces

the development section, which ends with material borrowed from the

exposition to introduce the recapitulation. The second movement

{Andante con moto) begins with a transparent yet exquisite melody that is

embroidered with a fashionable set of four variations. A dissenting voice

among the otherwise tranquil variations is the third, which explodes with

heated excitement. The excitement subsides, however, with the entrance

of the fourth variation, which ends the movement as quietly as it began.

The fourth movement {Rondo: Allegro) is bouncy and full of merriment,

bringing the entire work to a splendid and successful conclusion.

A professional violinist as well as a violist, Ottorino Respighi

knew well the violin’s capabilities and possibilities. His compositional

mentors were Giuseppe Martucci, Max Bruch, and Nikolas RimskyKorsakov. To this list of mentors must be added Johannes Brahms, who

did not personally tutor Respighi but whose influence is evident. As

Joseph Braustein illustrates in his critique of a performance of the

Respighi Violin Sonata: “The sonata...betrays the marked influence of

Brahms by virtue of its lyrical middle movement, which is characterized 

by constantly fluctuating harmonies. The last movement is a passacaglia 

that was evidently inspired by the finale of Brahms’ Fourth Symphony.”

Prokofiev’s Sonata No. I in F Minorfor Violin and Piano, Op.

80, took almost ten years to complete. The work was dedicated to his

close friend David Oistrakh (1908-1974), who, in addition to being his

collaborator on the writing of the violin part, gave the work its world

premier in 1946. Prokofiev’s own comment about the work helps to

illuminate the moodiness ofthis wartime composition: “Its seriousness is

substantially increased over the Second [Sonata, Op. 94]. The first

movement {Andante assai) is severe in character and is a kind of

extended introduction to the second movement {Allegro brusco), [which]

is vigorous and turbulent, but has a broad second theme. The third

movement {Andante) is slow, gentle, and tender. The finale

{Allegrissimo) is fast and written in complicated rhythm.” After its

American premiere in 1948, played by the celebrated Hungarian-born

American violinist Joseph Szigeti (1892-1973), the San Francisco

Chronicle music critic, Alfred Frankenstein (1906-1981), remarked on

the sonata’s “splendidly wrought musical fabric.” In addition, he wrote:

“It exploits, as only a master like Prokofiev can exploit it, the full range

of color, nuance, and expressive devices of which the violin is capable.”