16 Dang Thai Son, pianist

23 Los Angeles Piano Quartet

30 Ralph Votapek, pianist

April

6 Louis Lortie, pianist

Presented in honor of the

exhibition Frederic

Remington: The Color of

Night

13 Valerie Tryon, pianist

Presented in honor of the

exhibition Frederic

Remington: The Color of

Night

Debussy: Five Preludes

Chopin: Nocturne in E Minor, Four

Waltzes, Scherzo No. 2

Liszt: Deux legends

Mompou: Canciones y danzas

Ravel: La valse

Beethoven: Piano Quartet, Op. 16

Stephen Hartke: King ofthe Sun

Brahms: Piano Quartet, Op. 25

Debussy: Twenty-four Preludes

Schumann: Fruhlingsnacht,

Phantasiestiicke, Op. Ill

Liszt: Transcendental Etudes

Nos. 5 and 6

Hungarian Rhapsody No. 9

Carnaval de Pest

Elliott Carter: Night Fantasies

Ravel: Gaspard de la nuit

Chopin: Two Nocturnes

Liszt: Harmonies du soir

Granados: The Lover and the

Nightingale

Poulenc: Three Nocturnes

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.

For the convenience of concertgoers

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:30 p.m.

The Sixty-first Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2448th Concert

JULIA ANNE WOLF, mezzo-soprano

MARIE-FRANCE LEFEBVRE, pianist

Presented in honor of the exhibition

Thomas Gainsborough, 1727-1788

Sunday Evening, 23 February 2003

Seven O’clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
George Frideric Handel

(1685-1759)

Program

Frondi tenere....Ombra mai fu

from “Serse” (1738)

Dopo notte, atra e funesta 

from “Ariodante” (1735)

Gaetano Donizetti Four Arias

(1797-1848)

11 barcaiolo

La conocchia

Amore e morte

Me voglio fa’ na casa

Joseph Haydn

(1732-1809)

English Canzonettas

O Tuneful Voice

Pastoral Song

The Wanderer

The Mermaid’s Song

Intermission

Vincenzo Bellini

(1801-1835)

Lieto del dolce incarco....“La Tremenda”

from “I Capuleti e i Montecchi”

(1830)

Arnold Schoenberg

(1874-1951)

Four Songs, Op. 2

(1899)

Erwartung

Schenk mir deinen goldenen Kamm

Erhebung

Waldsonne

Camille Saint-Saens

(1835-1921)

Selected Songs

Serenade

Guitare

La feuille de peuplier 

Plainte

Le someil des fleurs

Danse macabre

Amour, viens aider, from “Samson et Dalila”

Musicians

“Mezzo-soprano Julia Anne Wolf was captivating. Her ornamentation

was exemplary, and the orchestra gave her a wonderful tapestry on which

to weave her beautiful solos” [in Bach’s B Minor Mass] (Baltimore Sun).

“Rosina was sung by Julia Anne Wolf....Her Una voce poco fa, with the

right amount of vocal decoration, was one of the two or three high points

of the night” [in Rossini’s II barbiere di Siviglia] (Roanoke Times and

World News). This talented mezzo-soprano has garnered numerous 

accolades equal in fervor to the ones above, singing with the New York

City Opera and the opera companies of Santa Fe, Baltimore,

Glimmerglass, Lake George, Nashville, Indianapolis, and Saint Louis.

She is also frequently heard with the Washington Opera, where she made

her professional debut in 1984, creating the role of Natasha Rambova in

the world premiere of Dominick Argento’s The Dream of Valentino.

Other roles in Washington have included Siebel in Faust, Mercedes in

Carmen, Sofie in Krasa’s Betrothal in a Dream, the Third Lady in Die

Zauberflote, and, most recently, the Secretary in The Consul.

She has performed a number of roles with the New York City

Opera, including Zerlina in Don Giovanni, Mallika in Lakme, the Second

Lady in Die Zauberflote, Mercedes in Carmen, Annina in Der

Rosenkavalier, and Rosina in II barbiere di Siviglia with the company’s

national tour in 1995. She made her debut in Saint Louis as Annio in La

clemenza di Tito, and returned to sing La Messagiera in Monteverdi’s La

Favola d'Orfeo in a new production conducted by Anthony Rolfe

Johnson and directed by Colin Graham. In the summer of 1999 Wolf
created the role of the Pauper’s wife in the world premiere of Paul

Schoenfeld’s The Merchant and the Pauper with the Opera Theatre of

Saint Louis.

Julia Anne Wolf studied at the Juilliard Opera Center, where she

was awarded a Richard F. Gold Career Grant. A native of Baltimore,

Wolf earned her bachelor’s degree in fine arts at Towson State

University and her master of music degree in opera performance at the

State University of New York. She appears at the National Gallery by

arrangement with Trawick Artists of New York City.

French-Canadian pianist Marie-France Lefebvre teaches at the

Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She has been a diction coach

and rehearsal pianist at the Washington Opera since 1992 and has

worked professionally with the Santa Fe Opera, the Michigan Opera 

Theater, the Wolf Trap Opera, and the Aspen Music Festival. She has

served as director of the song integration program at the Banff Centre for

the Arts in Canada and has taught at the University of Maryland. She has

performed throughout Canada and the United States as a soloist, chamber 

musician, and accompanist, and has given several recitals that were

broadcast on Radio Canada. She was recently heard live on Chicago’s

WFMT Radio, performing on the Dame Myra Fless concert series with

her husband, cellist Nathaniel Chaitkin. Marie-France Lefebvre is often

asked to collaborate with nationally known singers, among them soprano

Harolyn Blackwell, mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves, and bass Samuel

Ramey. She earned a doctorate in music from the University of

Michigan, where she studied with Martin Katz and Arthur Greene, and a

master of music degree from the Manhattan School of Music. At the

Conservatoire du Quebec she won prizes in both solo piano and chamber 

music. Among her other teachers were Donal Nold, Joseph Seiger,

Monique Collet, and Marek Jablonski.

Program Notes

The first half of this program was chosen to reflect the concerts that took

place in London between 1765 and 1781 under the direction of

composer/performers Johann Christian Bach and Karl Friedrich Abel.

The final eight years of those concerts took place in rooms built

especially for them in Hanover Square. One of the most loyal patrons of

those concerts was Thomas Gainsborough, whose passion for music

rivaled his passion for art. Gainsborough painted portraits of both Abel

and Bach and contributed several paintings to the rooms at Hanover

Square. His close friendship with Abel was lamented by some of his

friends, who wrote of their concern that both men might drink

themselves to death in each other’s company. In fact, both survived past

sixty, a ripe old age for their time, but Abel’s death was attributed to

illness brought on by over-indulgence in food and drink.

Concerts at the National Gallery of Art

Under the direction of George Manos

Concerts in March and April 2003

March

2 Garrick Ohlsson, pianist

9 Alexander Fiterstein,

clarinetist

Ken Noda, pianist

Bach/Busoni: Prelude and Fugue

in E-flat Major (“Saint Anne’j

Busoni: Two Sonatas and excerpts

from Elegies

Liszt/Busoni: La campanella

Chausson: Andante and Allegro

Schumann: Romances, Op. 94

Poulenc: Sonata for Clarinet and

Piano

Weber: Grand duo concertante