The National Gallery of Art and the 

Westminster Chamber Orchestra Present

Crosscurrents in Art and Music

Linda Cherniavsky and James Plondke, conductors

Monday, March 19, 2012

3:30 pm

National Gallery of Art

West Building, West Garden Court
Jasper Francis Cropsey, Autumn — On the Hudson River (detail), i860,

National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift ofthe Avalon Foundation

PROGRAM

Musicfor the First President

adapted by Kate Van Winkle Keller after David and

Ginger Hildebrand; orchestrated by James Plondke

“A Toast to Washington” (Francis Hopkinson, 1778)

“General Washington” (Jonathan M. Sewall, 1776,

to the tune of “The British Grenadiers”)

“The President’s March” (Philip Phile, 1789)

String Quartet in D Minor

Allegro

Charles Hommann

John Browns Body

William Steflfe

arranged by Arthur Luck

An American Landscape

From the New World Symphony

Antonin Dvorak

arranged by James Plondke

“Home! Sweet Home!”for Winslow Homer

arranged by James Plondke
PROGRAM NOTES

Musicfor the First President

This medley of tunes from the age of George Washington is inspired

by the Gallery’s portraits ofthe first president. The music reflects the

naive artistry of early America and its youthful, spirited optimism.

String Quartet in D Minor

A historic New Hampshire avalanche, which took nine lives and

became etched in the American psyche, inspired both a short story

by Nathaniel Hawthorne and Thomas Cole’s autumn landscape

A View ofthe Mountain Pass Called the Notch ofthe White Mountains

(Crawford Notch) of 1839. Composed at about the same time as

Cole’s painting was made, Hommann’s music mirrors the brooding,

anxious “storm and stress” atmosphere of Cole’s scenery and

Hawthorne’s short story.

John Brown’s Body

In the 1990s, the National Gallery of Art undertook a major project 

to restore and preserve a plaster cast ofthe Civil War memorial to

Robert Gould Shaw and the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Regiment.

The heroism ofthese African American Union troops would be

celebrated for generations in music, poetry, and art. At the unveiling 

ofthe bronze monument on Boston Common its sculptor, Augustus 

Saint-Gaudens, witnessed surviving veterans ofthe regiment “passing 

the very spot where they left for the war so many years before.... They 

faced and saluted the relief, with the music playing ‘John Brown’s

Body.’ They seemed as ifreturning from the war, the troops of bronze

marching in the direction in which they had left for the front, showing 

these veterans the vigor and hope ofyouth. It was a consecration.”

An American Landscape

Jasper Francis Cropsey’s immense landscape Autumn — On the

Hudson River (1863) conveys a celebratory, nationalistic mood. A

wandering stream, which empties into the Hudson, charts a course

suggesting American progress and harmony with nature. Dvorak

evokes a similar spirit in his masterful New World Symphony. The

orchestra’s “landscape” is taken from the inner movements of the

symphony. An expressive passage, original to Dvorak but modeled

on the melodic character of an African American spiritual, frames

musical scenes inspired by Longfellow’s Song ofHiawatha — for 

example, a feast in the wood where American Indians dance, and

the awakening of animal life on the prairie. A grand theme, which

recurs throughout the symphony, suggests the vastness and majesty

of America and leads back to a reprise ofthe expressive leitmotif.

“Home! Sweet Home!”for Winslow Homer

Home, Sweet Home (1863) is the first oil painting ever displayed by

Winslow Homer. It portrays a scene of camp life, with two Union

soldiers in a reflective pose as a band plays in the background.

Confederate lines can be seen in the distance. In a letter, Union

General Nelson A. Miles described a similar scene: “Late in the

afternoon our bands were accustomed to play the most spirited

martial and national airs, such as ‘Columbia’ to be answered along

the Confederate lines by bands playing ‘The Bonny Blue Flag’ with

equal enthusiasm. These demonstrations frequently aroused the

hostile sentiments ofthe two armies, yet the animosity disappeared

when, at the close, some band would strike up that melody which

comes nearest the hearts of all true men, ‘Home, Sweet Home,’ and

every band within hearing would join in that sacred anthem with

unbroken accord and enthusiasm.”
MUSICIANS

The Westminster Chamber Orchestra

The Westminster Schools in Atlanta have inspired, challenged,

and developed the gifts of young people since 1951. A Christian

school community with students in kindergarten through grade

12, Westminster combines the best oftraditional and innovative

educational practices, developing lifelong learners prepared to serve

and lead in a changing world. High school students enjoy numerous

opportunities for international travel, with study-abroad, exchange, 

and service-learning programs across the globe. Robust arts and

athletics offerings round out student educational experiences. The

Westminster Chamber Orchestra, a high school course offered in

the performing arts department, comprises forty-five students and

is one component of Westminster’s instructional string program,

which includes five orchestras and approximately two hundred

students in grades 3 through 12.

National Gallery of Art

Since 1989, the summer Teacher Institute has provided information

about art in its cultural context and techniques for incorporating art

across the curriculum. After attending the 2011 program “American

Art ofthe Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries,” music educator

James Plondke returned to Westminster High School in Atlanta, 

Georgia, stirred by the connections made at the institute between 

American art and music. The thematic and stylistic correspondences

between these “sister arts” inspired the musical arrangements

performed today. Earlier in the day, these young musicians toured

the American collections, seeing the original works of art they had

previously known only in reproduction.

www.nga.gov/education/teacinst.htm