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

www.nga.gov

The Sixty-ninth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,840th Concert

Thomas Pandolfi, pianist

May 1, 2011

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

From Annies de pelerinage (Years of Pilgrimage) (1838)

Fantasia quasi sonata: Apres une Lecture du Dante

(After a Reading of Dante)

Liszt

Liebestraum no. 3 in A-Jlat Major (Dream of Love) (1850)

Liszt

Valse oubliee no. 1 in F-sharp Major (Forgotten Waltz) (1881)

Robert Schumann (1810-1856)

Widmung (Dedication) (1848)

Arranged by Liszt

Liszt

Hungarian Rhapsody no. 12 in C-sharp Minor

INTERMISSION

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)

Four Etudes (1829-1837)

No. 12 in C Minor, op. 10 (“Revolutionary”)

No. 1 in A-flat Major, op. 25 (“Aeolian Harp”)

No. 8 in F Major, op. 10 (“Sunshine”)

No. 3 in E Major, op. 10 (“Tristesse”)

Chopin

Fantasy-Impromptu in C-sharp Minor, op. 66 (c. 1834)

Chopin

Polonaise in A-flat Major, op. 53 (“Heroic”) (1842)

The Musician

Hailed by critics for his passionate artistry and accomplished technique,

Thomas Pandolfi is a virtuoso pianist who has been attracting increased

attention worldwide. A graduate ofthe Juilliard School of Music and a leading interpreter ofthe works of George Gershwin including Concerto in F and

Rhapsody in Blue, Pandolfi has also played concerti by Liszt, Rachmaninoff,

and Tchaikovsky with orchestras in the Czech Republic, Moldova, Romania,

and Wales. In the United States, he has performed with orchestras in

California, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey,

North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia. Last season, Pandolfi

played the world premiere of British composer Simon Proctor’s The James

Bond Concerto in London, and participated with the American Festival Pops

Orchestra in the gala opening night of Merchant Hall at the Hylton Performing Arts Center in Virginia. Currently performing in concerts across the 

country, Pandolfi is completing work on his sixth CD release. He maintains

a website at www.ThomasPandolfi.com.

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Program Notes

One of Franz Liszt’s major works for the piano, the Fantasia quasi sonata:

Apres une Lecture du Dante is the final work in Book n of his musical travelogue Annees de pelerinage. Even in its first version, published in 1838, it is

revolutionary in its severity, demands on the instrument, and emotional

scope. In addition, the composer’s experiments in structural organization, 

manipulation ofthemes, and use of keys with symbolic significance show

his progression toward his monumental Sonata in B Minor (1853) and Dante

Symphony (1856). By the time the second version ofAnnees de pelerinage

appeared in 1858, twenty years after the first, Liszt’s ability to transform his 

life experiences into music was unequalled.

Liszt wrote three pieces titled Liebestraum (Dream of Love), and the 

third—A transcription of a song Liszt wrote in 1847, “O lieb, o lieb, so lang 

du lieben kannst” (O love, love as long as you can love) —is by far the most

popular. It was originally published as Nottumo no. 3 and carried the song’s

title as a subtitle. This work eventually became so popular and overplayed

that by the mid-twentieth century pianists began dropping it from their

repertory. Though that trend eventually reversed, the piece is still not as

often performed as it once was.

Valse oubliee no. 1 is one offour “forgotten waltzes” that Liszt composed 

between 1881 and 1885. Forgotten until it was discovered and published in

the United States in 1954, it features an unusual series ofstaccato chords in

unique harmonic progressions, establishing a mood of modernity, sophistication, and fantasy. The melody, built around arpeggiated ninth chords, 

swoops upward and dips downward in ever-increasing arcs. The left hand

harmonies are based on the upper partials ofthe chords, a technique that

was rediscovered by twentieth-century jazz pianists.

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Liszt’s piano works are generally divided into two categories—original 

works and transcriptions. In addition to his transcriptions of Beethoven’s

symphonies and many operatic works, a large number ofthe pieces he 

transcribed for virtuoso piano performance were songs by Schubert and 

Schumann. In 1848 Liszt made an elaborate transcription of Schumann’s

“Widmung,” which Schumann had composed in 1840, the year he married

Clara Wieck. The text is by Friederich Riickert.

You my bliss, 0 you my pain,

you the world in which I live;

you my heaven, in which I float,

o you my grave, into which

I eternally cast my grief.

You are rest, you are peace,

you are bestowed upon me from heaven.

That you love me makes me worthy ofyou;

your gaze transfigures me;

you raise me lovingly above myself,

my good spirit, my better self!

Captivated by Flungarian gypsy (Magyar) music from his childhood, 

Liszt wrote nineteen Hungarian Rhapsodies. Among his essays and treatises, 

which are peppered with references to Magyars and their music, there is a

450-page treatise on the subject, published in 1859. Liszt was mistaken in

equating “gypsy” music with that ofthe Hungarian Magyars, as research by

Bela Bartok, Zoltan Kodaly, and others has proven. The themes he used

actually came from urban sources, mostly popular tunes recently composed. 

The gypsy flavor derives from his use ofthe so-called “gypsy scale,” roughly 

equivalent to the harmonic minor scale; sectional structure punctuated by

sudden breaks; abrupt transitions; and a freely improvisatory style. Contrasts and gathering momentum as the piece draws to a close are the

principal characteristics of Magyar music.

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Chopin composed two sets oftwelve concert etudes: op. 10, written

between 1829 and 1832 and dedicated to Liszt; and op. 25, composed between 1835 and 1.837 and dedicated to Liszt’s mistress, Countess Marie

d’Agoult. He wrote four impromptus—a French term suggesting improvisation or quickly composed piece—but affixed the word “fantaisie” (fantasy)

only to the last one, perhaps implying a clearer form for the first three and a

more rhapsodic nature for the last. In fact, the Impromptu in C-sharp Minor

exhibits a fairly straightforward aba pattern, with an unexpected twist in the 

coda. Worried that posterity might find this impromptu too derivative ofthe 

Impromptu, op. 89, of Ignaz Moscheles (1794-1870), Chopin asked that it,

along with several of his early nocturnes, be destroyed after his death. 

Fortunately the executors of his will ignored this detail.

One ofChopin’s most popular works, the Polonaise in A-fiat Major, op.

53, nicknamed “Heroic,” reflects the happiness that existed in his life during

the early 1820s, when his health was still relatively stable and his love affair

with the French novelist Aurore Dupin, better known as George Sand

(1804-1876), was in full bloom.

Program notes by Danielle DeSwert Hahn

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Upcoming at the National Gallery ofArt

National Gallery ofArt

Resident Ensembles

Music by J. S. Bach

and W. A. Mozart

Sponsored by the Gottesman Fund

in memory of Milton M. Gottesman

May 8, 2011

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

4$

Award-Winners from the

Feder Memorial String Competition

ofthe Washington Performing Arts Society

Sponsored by the Richard B. and Sarah J. Marsten 

Charitable Remainder Unitrust

May 15, 2011

Sunday, 6:30 pm

East Building Auditorium