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

2,836th Concert

Inscape Chamber Music Project

Sarah D’Angelo, violin

Evan R. Solomon, clarinet 

Diana Flesner, cello

Danielle DeSwert Hahn, piano

April 3, 2011

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)

Quatuor pour laJin du temps (Quartet for the End ofTime) (1941)

Liturgie de cristal

(Crystal Liturgy)

Vocalise, pour I’Ange qui annonce lajin du temps

(Vocalise, for the Angel Who Announces the End ofTime)

Abime des oiseaux

(Abyss ofthe Birds)

Intermede

(Interlude)

Louange a Vetemite de Jesus

(Praise to the Eternity ofJesus)

Danse de lafureur, pour les sept trompettes

(Dance of Fury for the Seven Trumpets)

Fouillis d’arcs-en-ciel, pour lAnge qui annonce la jin du temps

(Tangles of Rainbows for the Angel Who Announces the

End ofTime)

Louange a VImmortalite de Jesus

(Praise to the Immortality ofJesus)
The Musicians

INSCAPE CHAMBER MUSIC PROJECT

Founded in 2004 by artistic director Richard Scerbo, the Inscape Chamber

Music Project aims to engage audiences, explore both standard and nonstandard works in a compelling way, and navigate the vast repertoire of

chamber music. Inscape’s continuing commitment to performing new

works by emerging American composers has resulted in recent world

premieres by Justin Boyer, Joseph Hallman, and Nathan Lincoln-DeCusatis.

Members of Inscape regularly perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra; 

the Delaware, National, Richmond, and Virginia symphony orchestras; 

the Washington Opera Orchestra; and the bands ofthe United States

Armed Forces.

Currently the ensemble-in-residence at The Episcopal Church ofthe 

Redeemer in Bethesda, Maryland, Inscape also performs at the Robert E.

Parilla Performing Arts Center in Rockville, Maryland.

SARAH D’ANGELO

A graduate ofthe Peabody Institute ofthe Johns Hopkins University, violinist

Sarah D’Angelo also studied at the University of Maryland in College Park,

where her courses included Suzuki pedagogy. Her principal teachers include 

Yong Ku Ahn, Ronda Cole, and Herbert Greenberg as well as Violaine

Melangon, founding violinist ofthe Peabody Trio. D’Angelo has appeared

in concert at the Arts Club ofWashington, the Mansion at Strathmore, the

National Gallery ofArt, and the Washington National Cathedral, and has 

performed with the Baltimore Opera Company, the Maryland Symphony

Orchestra, and the Maryland Philharmonic Orchestra. She teaches violin

at the Norwood School in Bethesda, Maryland.

4

EVAN R. SOLOMON

A founding member of Inscape, clarinetist and bass clarinetist Evan R.

Solomon currently serves as its executive director. He has appeared with the 

Eclipse Chamber Orchestra, the Kennedy Center Opera House Orchestra, 

the National Symphony Orchestra, and Washington Concert Opera. He has

also performed as bass clarinetist with the Delaware Symphony Orchestra

and principal clarinetist of Opera on the James in Lynchburg, Virginia. Conductors with whom he has worked include Valery Gergiev, Eri Klas, Leonard

Slatkin, and Michael Stern. An active recitalist, Solomon has been heard at

the Kennedy Center, Montgomery College, and the Smithsonian Institution.

Solo and chamber works for the clarinet have been composed for him by

Justin Boyer, Joe Hallman, John McGinn, Altin Volaj, and sixteen other composers. A faculty member at Montgomery College, Solomon holds bachelor 

and master ofmusic degrees from the Peabody Conservatory of Music

and the University of Maryland, respectively.

DIANA FLESNER

Cellist Diana Flesner received her doctor of musical arts degree from the 

University ofIllinois, where she was a full scholarship member ofthe graduate string quartet. She earned her master of music degree from the San

Francisco Conservatory of Music, and a bachelor of arts from Middlebury

College, with a double major in music and Russian language and literature. 

Her principal teachers include Dieuwke Davydov, Jean-Michel Fonteneau, 

Bonnie Hampton, and Brandon Vamos. Currently a member ofthe West

Shore Piano Trio, Flesner was formerly the cellist ofthe Cervantes String 

Quartet and principal cellist ofthe University ofIllinois Symphony Orchestra.

She has appeared as guest musician with Baroque Artists of ChampaignUrbana, The Prairie Ensemble, Opera Illinois, and the Annapolis, ChampaignUrbana, Fairfax, Illinois, and Peoria symphony orchestras. A faculty member

at the International School of Music in Bethesda, Maryland, she has participated in the Manchester Music Festival and the quartet program at Bucknell

University in addition to playing in master classes and coaching with members ofthe Juilliard, Kocian, Kronos, Miro, Miami, Pacifica, Takacs, and 

Tokyo string quartets.

5
DANIELLE DESWERT HAHN

Born in Brussels, Belgium, pianist Danielle DeSwert Hahn has worked as a

freelance pianist and coach for eight years in Washington and is currently the

principal pianist of Inscape. As an opera repetiteur, she has worked with the

Ash Lawn Highland Opera Festival, Chautauqua Opera, Indianapolis Opera,

Kentucky Opera, New York Opera Society, Portland (Oregon) Opera, Sarasota 

Opera, and Washington National Opera, as well as San Francisco Opera’s

Western Opera Theater. From 2004-2006 she was the principal repetiteur

with the Baltimore Opera Company and Washington Concert Opera. In 2003

she was the principal repetiteur for the world premiere ofThea Musgrave’s

opera Pontalba, presented by the New Orleans Opera Association.

Hahn regularly performs in chamber music and voice recitals, partnering with members ofthe Kennedy Center Opera Orchestra and the National

Symphony Orchestra as well as the National Gallery ofArt Piano Trio. In

addition to performances at the Arts Club ofWashington, the Kennedy Center, 

the Mexican Institute ofCulture, the National Gallery ofArt, the residence

ofthe Belgian Ambassador, the Russian Embassy, and the White House,

she has also performed in the An die Musik series in Baltimore and at the

Jewish Community Center ofGreater Washington in Rockville, Maryland.

Since spring 2006 Hahn has held the position ofmusic program specialist

at the National Gallery ofArt. She holds a master ofmusic degree from the

University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she studied with Martin Katz, and

a bachelor ofmusic degree from the University ofCalifornia, Santa Barbara.

6

Program Notes

One ofthe great stories oftwentieth-century music, Olivier Messiaen’s

account ofthe composition and premiere performance of Quartetfor the

End ofTime has become a cherished myth:

Conceived and composed during my captivity, the Quartetfor the

End ofTime was premiered in Stalag VIII-A on 15 January, 1941.

It took place in Gorlitz, in Silesia, in a dreadful cold. The stalag

was buried in snow. We were 30,000 prisoners (French for the

most part, with a few Poles and Belgians). The four musicians

played on broken instmments: Etienne Pasquier’s cello had only

3 strings; the keys of my upright piano remained lowered when 

depressed.... It’s on this piano, with my three fellow musicians, 

dressed in the oddest way—I wearing a bottle-green suit of

a Czech soldier, completely tattered, and wooden dogs large

enough for the blood to circulate despite the snow underfoot—

that I played my Quartetfor the End ofTime, before an audience 

of 5,000 people. The most diverse classes ofsociety were

mingled: farmers, factory workers, intellectuals, professional 

servicemen, doctors, priests. Never before have I been listened 

to with such attention and understanding.

In her book For the End ofTime: The Story ofthe Messiaen Quartet, clarinetist Rebecca Rischin dispels several ofthe long-accepted myths concerning that remarkable event, asserting that Messiaen’s embellished version

was simplified or exaggerated to make it easier to deal with in later interviews. Though the conditions must certainly have been trying, the instruments (while inferior) were, according to Rischin, quite up to the task—the

cello, for example, had its four strings. The crowd was probably closer to 300

than the 5,000 that Messiaen claimed. The effort of composing and rehearsing this masterpiece could not have been endured without the collaboration

ofthe other musicians, prisoners, and guards at the camp. Though legend

has it that Messiaen just happened to meet the other three musicians after

his arrival there, he had, in fact, previously met the clarinetist and the cellist, 

Henri Akoka and Etienne Pasquier, and was familiar with both men’s work.

7
Not long after they found each other at the stalag, they also discovered

violinist Jean Le Boulaire, and a viable instrumentation for a quartet—violin,

clarinet, cello, and piano—was complete. As Alcoka was the only one ofthe

four who actually had his instrument with him, it was necessary to procure

instruments for the other three.

Karl-Albert Brull, an anti-Nazi German guard at Stalag viii-a, helped

many ofthe prisoners in the camp, including many ofthe Jews who had

been interned there. He was of particular help to Messiaen, bringing him

pencils, erasers, manuscript paper, and other supplies. It was to him that the

other musicians attributed the acquisition oftheir instruments. By the time

Messiaen arrived at the camp, he was already famous throughout Europe

as a composer, and the guards and prisoners were a bit star-struck. Once

instruments had been brought to the camp, the guards organized a regular

concert series, which took place on Sunday evenings. It was on one ofthose

Sunday evenings in January 1941 that the premiere ofthe Quartet took place.

Messiaen, a deeply religious Catholic, found inspiration in the following

passage in chapter ten ofthe Book ofRevelation: “And I saw another mighty

angel coming down from heaven, wrapped in a cloud, with a rainbow on his

head; his face was like the sun, and his legs like pillars offire... saying:

There will be no more Time; but in the days when the seventh angel is to

blow his trumpet, the mystery of God will be fulfilled.’” Despite the parallels

between the angel’s forecast of doom and what took place in Europe between 1939 and 1941, Messiaen denied that the apocalyptic allusions in the

Quartet bore any relation to current events. An avid ornithologist, he also

found inspiration in bird calls; at several points in the quartet, he chose to 

imitate the sounds ofvarious birds as ethereal symbols. The following notes

about the movements are from the composer’s preface:

This Quartet comprises eight movements. Why? Seven is the

perfect number, the Creation in six days is sanctified by the divine

Sabbath; the seventh day ofthis repose extends into eternity and

becomes the eighth day of eternal light, of unalterable peace.

1. Crystal Liturgy: Between three and four o’clock in the morning,

the birds awaken; a solo blackbird or nightingale improvises,

surrounded by dustwhirls ofsound, by a halo of harmonics lost 

high up in the trees. Transpose this onto a religious plane: you 

have the harmonious silence of heaven.

2. Vocalise for the Angel Who Announces the End ofTime: The first

and third sections (both very brief) evoke the power ofthis

mighty angel, crowned with a rainbow and clothed in a cloud, 

who places one foot on the sea and the other on the land. The

“middle” (second section) evokes the impalpable harmonies of

heaven. In the piano, gentle cascades of blue-orange chords

encircle with their distant carillon the plainchant-like song of

the violin and cello.

3. Abyss ofthe Birds: Unaccompanied clarinet. The abyss is Time,

with its dreariness and gloom. The birds are the opposite of

Time; they represent our longing for light, for stars, for rainbows, and for jubilant song!

4. Interlude: Scherzo, in a more outgoing character than the

other movements, yet related to them nevertheless by melodic

“recalls.”

5. Praise to the Eternity ofJesus: Here, Jesus is considered the

Word of God. A long phrase in the cello, inexorably slow,

glorifies, with adoration and reverence, the eternity ofthis

mighty yet gentle Word, “ofwhich the ages never tire.” The 

melody unfolds majestically, as iffrom a regal yet soft-colored 

horizon. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was

with God, and the Word was God.”
6. Dance, ofFuryfor the Seven Trumpets: Rhythmically, the most

characteristic movement ofthis series. The four instruments

in unison create the effect of gongs and trumpets (the first six

trumpets ofthe Apocalypse followed by various calamities, [then]

the trumpet ofthe seventh angel, announcing the fulfillment

ofthe mystery of God).... Music ofstone, tremendous ringing

granite; perpetual motion ofsteel, of enormous blocks of purple

fury, offrozen intoxication. Listen, above all, to the terrifying

fortissimo ofthe theme in augmentation and register alteration

toward the end ofthe movement.

7. Tangles ofRainbowsfor the Angel Who Announces the End ofTime:

Certain passages here recall the second movement. The Angel 

appears, full ofmight, and in particular the rainbow that crowns

him (the rainbow, symbol of peace, ofwisdom, and of every

luminous sound and vibration). In my dreams, I hear and see 

classified chords and melodies, common colors and forms; then,

after this transitory stage, I pass into unreality and lose myself

in rapture to a whirling, gyrating fusion ofsuperhuman sound

and color. These swords offire, these pools of blue-orange lava,

these shooting stars: this is the tangled skein, these are the

rainbows!

8. Praise to the Immortality ofJesus: Long solo for violin, the

counterpart to the cello solo in the fifth movement. Why this

second eulogy? It addresses more specifically the second aspect

ofJesus: Jesus the Man, the Word made flesh, immortally resurrected, to impart to us his life. This movement is pure love. The

progressive ascent toward the extremely high register represents

the ascension of man toward his Lord, ofthe son of God toward

his Father, of deified Man toward Paradise.

Program notes by Danielle DeSwert Hahn

10

Next week at the National Gallery of Art

Venice Baroque Orchestra

Music by Vivaldi

and other composers

Presented in honor of

Venice: Canaletto and His Rivals

April 10, 2011

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court