The Sixty-second Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

L. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2491st Concert

RUTH LAREDO, pianist

Sunday Evening, 28 March 2004

Seven O’clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
Program

Robert Schumann Four Pieces from Phantasiestiicke, Op. 12

(1810-1856) (1837)

Des Abends (Evening)

Aufschwung (Soaring)

Warum? (Why?)

In der Nacht (In the Night)

Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata No. 23 in F Minor (“Appassionata”)

(1770-1827) Op. 57 (1804-1805)

Allegro assai

Andante con moto

Allegro ma non troppo

Alexander Scriabin Poeme, Op. 32, No. 1

(1872-1915) (1903)

Guirlandes, Op. 73, No. 1

(1914)

Sonata No. 10

Op. 70(1913)

(In one movement, Moderato: Tres doux et pur)

Intermission

Sergei Rachmaninoff Five Preludes

(1873-1943)

Op. 32, No. 5 in G Major (1910)

Op. 32, No. 10 in B Minor (1910)

Op. 23, No. 4 in D Major (1903)

Op. 32, No. 12 in G-sharp Minor (1910)

Op. 3, No. 2 in C-sharp Minor (1892)

Maurice Ravel

(1875-1937)

La valse

(1921)

The use ofcameras 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 ofconcert goers

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

Hailed as “America’s First Lady of the Piano” (New York Daily News),

Ruth Laredo has a distinguished worldwide reputation as a leading

soloist, recitalist, and recording artist. While she is particularly renowned

for her pioneering recordings of the complete solo piano music of

Rachmaninoff and the complete piano sonatas of Scriabin, her broad

repertoire ranges from Beethoven to Barber. For the past sixteen seasons,

she has created a large and enthusiastic following for her sold-out series,

“Concerts with Commentary,” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in

New York City. Laredo has won high praise for her masterful playing

and discussions of Brahms, Mendelssohn, Robert and Clara Schumann,

Rachmaninoff, Scriabin, Ravel, Tchaikovsky, Dvorak, Mozart,

Beethoven, and Schubert. Her new video, Live from the Metropolitan

Museum, celebrates her unique Rachmaninoff performances. A threetime Grammy-award nominee, she was the first pianist ever to record the

complete solo works of Rachmaninoff for CBS Masterworks, which

earned her the Best Keyboard Artist award from Record World magazine

and a Grammy nomination.

Born in Detroit and a longtime resident of New York City, Ruth

Laredo studied at the Curtis Institute of Music with Rudolf Serkin and

made her New York Philharmonic debut under the direction of Pierre

Boulez. Her Carnegie Hall orchestral debut took place with the American

Symphony, Leopold Stokowski conducting. Ruth Laredo appears at the

National Gallery by arrangement with Gurtman and Murtha Associates of

New York City.

Program Notes

Schumann’s Phantasiestucke (Fantasy Pieces), Op. 12, are an

expressively conceived but loosely knit collection of eight contrasting 

sketches, dedicated to the Scottish pianist Robena Laidlaw. Fantasy,

taken to mean bizarre or incredible imaginings, is evidently not what

Schumann had in mind when he chose the word for this title. Writer 

Klaus George Roy offers another definition: “Fantasy, for Schumann,

was his other world; not an escape-paradise of idle day-dreaming 

without tangible results, but the artistic reality behind the material facade

of daily life.” The moody, introverted, mentally disturbed Schumann

took flight into a fantasy world to express himself and his alter ego. In

the fantasy world, the contrasting aspects of Schumann’s personality

become Florestan and Eusebius—the first a loquacious, lithesome, and

impetuous character, the latter quixotic, reflective, and otherworldly. The

fluctuation between Florestan and Eusebius in Fantasy Pieces is easily

discernible. For example, the extroverted Florestan makes his appearance

in the vociferous Aufschwung (Soaring), while the introverted Eusebius

surfaces in the more serene, passionate, and self-possessed pieces

entitled Des Abends (In the Evening), and Warum? (Why?). Schumann’s

fantasy was also motivated by an outward driving force, his love for the

beautiful Clara Wieck. According to historian Lous Biancoli, the

“Phantasiestucke, like so much else of Schumann’s piano music of this

period, is the poetic and passionate record of a young man in love.”

Dedicated to Count Franz von Brunswick (1779-1849), a cellist

and an ardent, well-informed connoisseur of Beethoven’s works, the

Piano Sonata No. 23 in F Minor, Op. 57, began its embryonic

development as Beethoven was working on his opera Fidelio. The

subtitle “Appassionato” is said to have been applied by the publisher,

not by Beethoven. Writer Romain Rolland contends that the subtitle is

unusual in its appropriateness. “This is, indeed, an impassioned work; the

fact that its title has brought it an unusual degree of popularity does not

in the least undermine its power or its stature.”

Following the classic sonata-allegro format, Op. 57 has been

described as more traditional in scope and layout than Beethoven’s

previous efforts in this genre. The contrast between the rhythmically

driven opening theme and the smooth, elegant secondary theme is

profound and explosive. These contrasts continue throughout the

movement and produce a diversity of moods, with short moments of

tranquility followed immediately by an equally brieffortissimo deluge.

All these features heighten the musical drama, with an added tonal

coloration provided by the contralto range chosen for the second theme.
The second movement {Andante con moto) has a single

mellifluous and dignified theme with a set of four imposing variations.

Surprisingly, the last variation does not end on the tonic chord. Instead,

there is a jolting dissonance that leads without interruption to the finale

{Allegro ma non troppo). This last movement relies on the sonata-allegro 

form, as did the first. However, it takes on the character of a moto

perpetuo, bringing the sonata to a brilliant and forceful conclusion.

The harmonies and melodies employed in Alexander Scriabin’s

music spring from chords he built on the interval of the fourth, as

opposed to chords built upon thirds, which had been the norm until his

time. His “mystical chord” of six notes (C, F-sharp, B-flat, E, A, and D)

was derived from these intervals. His Poeme, Op. 32, No. 1, is lyrically

sophisticated, has an impressionistic harmonic palette, and leans toward

key abandonment. Guirlandes (Garlands), Op. 73, No. 7, is a mystical

dance laden with strange harmonic nuances of a prophetic nature that

further stretch the tonal center. Proclaimed by some as Scriabin’s greatest

composition, the Sonata No. 10, Op. 70, is a mystical poem that unfolds

into a one-movement work. It is highly sonorous, requiring four staves to

outline its tonal inscription, and extremely difficult to perform. In the

words of John Gillespie {Five Centuries of Keyboard Music): “The

synthesis of harmonic richness with unexpected metrical designs distills

an unusual experience.”

The five Rachmaninoff preludes that Ruth Laredo has selected for

this program represent three of the composer’s distinct writing periods:

late adolescence {Op. 3, written when he was nineteen years old); young

adulthood {Op. 23, written when he was thirty-one); and maturity {Op.

32, written when he was thirty-seven). The Prelude in C-sharp Minor,

Op. 3, No. 2, is the most popular of all of Rachmaninoff’s preludes. It is

a singular work, the only prelude among a group of miniature 

compositions bound together with the collective title Morceaux de

fantaisie, Op. 3. The prelude was so popular with Rachmaninoff’s

audiences that he felt obliged to play it at every concert as an encore

and came to consider it a curse. He stated many times, when asked

about it, that he wished he had never composed it. Prelude No. 4 in D

Minor, Op. 23, is expansive, lyrical, and a wonderful example of Russian

melancholy. The three preludes from Op. 32, No. 5 in G Minor, No. 10 in

B Minor, and No. 12 in G-sharp Minor, are indicative of the mature

styling Rachmaninoff had achieved by the time he wrote this opus. The

synthesis of lyricism with mood changes (redolent in the works of his

compatriot Tchaikovsky), colorful harmonic fluctuations, and virtuosic

writing in the grand manner of his forebear Liszt garnered for

Rachmaninoff an unmistakable personal stamp. For many lovers and

admirers of nineteenth-century romantic piano music, Rachmaninoff’s

compositions remain the epitome of that stylistic period, even though

most of them were written after the turn of the twentieth century.

Wien (Vienna) was the original title of one of Ravel’s most

popular instrumental works, La valse {Poeme choreographique). Begun

in 1919 and initially scored for orchestra, the work was the first

composition Ravel started while on the road to rehabilitation after being

discharged from military service due to poor health. He was seeking a

new direction, since his friend and rival Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

had recently died, and a new group of young musicians {Les Six) were

emerging and threatening the musical leadership in France. Ravel,

France’s leading composer at that time, wanted to maintain and reinforce

his preeminence with La valse. By his own account, his reason for

composing the work was to pay homage to the waltz king, Johann

Strauss the younger, of whose incredible rhythms he was so enamored.

Writing about the La valse, Ravel stated: “I had intended this as a kind of

apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, which, as it is linked in my mind, gives

the impression of a fantastic whirl of destiny. I have given it the setting

of an imperial court, about 1855.” Ravel and Alfred Casella (1883-

1947), a prominent Italian composer of that time, gave the first

performance of the two-piano version in 1920. The solo piano version

heard on tonight’s program is remarkably faithful to the orchestral score

and has proven to be equally effective. As writer D. P. Stearns reports,

“The performance of La valse, as transcribed for [solo] piano, is so

coloristically alive that one never misses the orchestra.”

Program notes by Elmer Booze