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 of

the 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 of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue NW

Washington, DC

Mailing address

200ob South Club Drive

Landover, MD 20785

www.nga.gov

cover: Johann Elias Ridinger, A Stag beneath a Mighty Oak, 1735,

Wolfgang Ratjen Collection, Patrons’ Permanent Fund, National Gallery ofArt

The Sixty-eighth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery of Art

2,789th Concert

Teiber String Trio

Presented in honor of German Master Drawings

from the Wolfgang Ratjen Collection, 1580-1900

May 23, 2010

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Johann Sebastian Bach (1689-1750)

Aria with Thirty Variations (“Goldberg Variations”)

BWV 988 (1741-1742)

Transcribed for string trio by Dmitry Sitkovetsky

Aria

Duet

Trio

Canone all’ unisono

Quartet

Sonata

Canone alia seconda

A1 tempo di giga 

Sonata

Canone alia terza

Fughetta

Sonata

Canone alia quarta

Fughetta

Sonata

Canone alia quinta

Ouverture

Sonata

Canone alia sesta

Trio

Sonata

Canone alia settima

Alla breve

Sonata

Canone all’ ottava

Adagio

Sonata

Canone alia nona

Sonata

Sonata

Quodlibet

Aria da capo

The Musicians

Founded in 2007 by three members of “The President’s Own” United States

Marine Chamber Orchestra, the Teiber String Trio has quickly established itself

as one ofthe finest chamber ensembles in the mid-Atlantic region. In addition

to performing master works for string trio, the ensemble is committed to

exploring the vast array ofrelatively unknown pieces in the genre. The Trio’s

members have studied and performed chamber music with the American,

Borromeo, Cleveland, Guameri, Juilliard, and Miro string quartets. Each

musician appears regularly with other ensembles, including the Eclipse

Chamber Orchestra, the Fessenden Ensemble, the McLean Orchestra, the

National Gallery ofArt Orchestra, the National Philharmonic Orchestra, the

National Symphony Orchestra, and the White House Chamber Orchestra.

REGINO MADRID

A native of Los Angeles, violinist Regino Madrid attended the Colburn

School of Performing Arts and won the Rubinstein Grand Prize in the 1992

South Peninsula National Chamber Music competition. In 1998 he received

his bachelor ofmusic degree from the Cleveland Institute of Music. He is

currently a member of “The President’s Own” United States Marine White

House Orchestra and is an active soloist, concertmaster, and chamber

musician, playing at such venues such as the Kennedy Center, the Library

of Congress, the Phillips Collection, the Smithsonian Institution, and Wolf

Trap. He is the concertmaster ofthe McLean Orchestra and the Chesapeake

Orchestra at St. Mary’s, Maryland. In Los Angeles, Madrid founded the

Hamilton String Quartet and recorded numerous film soundtracks while

pursuing a degree in physiological science from the University of California

at Los Angeles.

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DEREK SMITH

Born in Wisconsin, violist Derek Smith began his musical studies at age

three and received bachelor and master ofmusic degrees from the Manhattan School of Music. An experienced chamber musician, he cofounded

the Sebastian Chamber Players and the Lorenzo String Quartet. He has

performed with violinists Isidore Cohen and Pinchas Zukerman and with

the American and Guarneri String Quartets. The Manhattan School of

Music awarded him the Hugo Kortzchek Chamber Music Award for his

outstanding work in the chamber music community.

CHARLIE POWERS

Since making his solo debut at age seventeen with the Tacoma, Washington,

Youth Symphony, cellist Charlie Powers has appeared as soloist with the

Capital Area Youth Symphony in Olympia, Washington; the Federal Way,

Washington, Philharmonic Orchestra; the Kaohsiung City Symphony Orchestra in Taiwan; and the United States Marine Band and Chamber Orchestra.

He received a bachelor ofmusic degree from the New England Conservatory

of Music, where he studied with Colin Carr and David Wells, and later pursued graduate studies with Natasha Brofsky. As a Tanglewood Music Center

fellow, Powers served as principal cellist ofthe Tanglewood Music Center

Orchestra under James Levine. He is a founding member ofthe Teiber String

Trio and Triptych, a piano trio, and has participated in the Aria, Banff, Heifetz,

Icicle Creek, and Tanglewood music festivals. In addition to his performing

career, Powers maintains a private studio and teaches beginning string classes

in Alexandria, Virginia, as a member of “A Joyful Noise.”

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Program Notes

On view in the National Gallery’s West Building until November 28, 2010,

German Master Drawingsfrom the Wolfgang Ratjen Collection, ij8o-igoo, is

one of the finest private European holdings of old master drawings. The 

exhibition includes rare and influential examples of German works on paper

encompassing sixteenth-century mannerism, the seventeenth-century

baroque, the eighteenth-century rococo, and romanticism and realism from

the nineteenth century.

In honor ofthe exhibition, the Teiber String Trio performs Johann 

Sebastian Bach’s Goldberg Variations, one ofthe outstanding German

masterworks ofthe baroque period. By the time the variations were published in 1742, the baroque period in art had passed into the rococo, and

musical fashion was moving into the style that eventually came to be called

“galant.” Some of the variations show the influence ofthe new style, but

most ofthem represent a culmination ofthe contrapuntal style that marked

the work of Bach’s German predecessors—composers who flourished in

the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

Some sixty years after Bach’s death, biographer Johann Forlcel related 

an account from one ofthe composer’s pupils, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg

(1727-1756), who was a harpsichordist in the service of Count Hermann

Karl von Keyserlingk, the Russian ambassador to the electoral court at

Dresden in the 1740s. The Count, who was an insomniac, commissioned

Bach to compose something that Goldberg could play in an adjoining room

until he fell asleep. There is much speculation as to the truth ofthe story,

but the work, which Bach titled simply Aria mit verschiedenen Veraenderungen

(Aria with various variations), has nevertheless gone down in history bearing

the name of Goldberg.

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The aria that provides the theme for the variations is a sarabande from

Bach’s second Clavierbuchlein (Little keyboard book)for Anna Magdalena Bach,

published in 1725. It is at once serene and vivacious. After the statement ofthe

aria, there are thirty variations, and the aria is repeated once again at the end.

The variations are not elaborations ofthe tune, but rather taken from the bass

line and the harmonic progression that underlies the theme.

Numerical relations can be found within the structure ofthe work:

the main theme is thirty-two bars long, and the work has a total ofthirtytwo movements; most variations employ the use ofthree voices, with the

exception offour variations that are made up offour voices; there are only 

three variations in a minor key, and the canon appears in every third variation. There is also a connection with the architecture ofthe palace ofthe

Elector of Dresden, known as the Zwinger, which at Bach’s time had thirtytwo sections, sixteen on either side ofthe main entrance. That entrance was 

identified in French (the official language ofthe court) as the ouverture.

Composed for a two-manual harpsichord, Bach’s monumental work has

become a musical shrine and the inspiration for transcriptions, not only for 

the piano but also for many combinations ofinstruments. The version for 

string trio that the Teiber Trio plays was created by violinist Dmitry Sitkovetsky

in 1984 and is dedicated to the pianist Glenn Gould (1932-1982), one ofthe

most famous proponents ofthe Goldberg Variations.

Program notes by Danielle DeSwert Hahn, music program specialist,

National Gallery ofArt

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Upcoming Concerts at the National Gallery ofArt

Randall Scarlata, baritone

Thomas Bagwell, pianist

German Lieder by Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Schumann

Presented in honor of German Master Drawings

from the Wolfgang Ratjen Collection, 1580-igoo

May 26, 2010

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Karin Paludan, soprano

Danielle DeSwert Hahn, pianist

Music by George Gershwin

Presented in honor of From Impressionism to

Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection

June 2, 2010

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall