For the convenience of concertgoers

the Cafe Provencal remains open until 6:oo pm.

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.

Music Department

National Gallery of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, dc

Mailing address

2000b South Club Drive

Landover, md 20785

wunv.ngfl.gov

The Sixty-fourth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery of Art

2,568th Concert

Piotr Anderszewski, pianist

April 23, 2006

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Fantasy and Sonata no. 14 in C Minor, K. 475 and 457 (1784-1785)

INTERMISSION

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Six Bagatelles, op. 126 (1823-1824)

Andante con moto 

Cantabile e compiacevole

Allegro

Andante cantabile e grazioso

Presto

Quasi allegretto

Presto; andante amabile e con moto

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

English Suite no. 6 in D Minor, BWV 811 (c. 1715)

Prelude

Allemande

Courante

Sarabande avec double

Gavottes I and II

Gigue
The Musician

Born in Warsaw to Hungarian and Polish parents, Piotr Anderszewski is

among the most compelling pianists of his generation. Since launching his

international career at London’s Wigmore Hall in 1991, Anderszewski has

continued to capture the attention of critics and audiences with his distinctive interpretations and commanding technique. He had his orchestral debut

in 2000 with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra and has since performed with 

the symphony orchestras of Baltimore, Boston, Cincinnati, Dallas, Montreal, 

New York, and Saint Louis, as well as at the Aspen, Ravinia, and Tanglewood Music Festivals. This season he debuts with the Saint Paul Chamber

Orchestra and the symphony orchestras of Chicago and Houston. Outside

the United States, he has played concertos with the Berlin Philharmonic

Orchestra, London’s Philharmonia Orchestra, the London Symphony

Orchestra, the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra, Tokyo’s nhk Symphony

Orchestra, and the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, among

others. He is also a regular participant in the Salzburg and Verbier Music 

Festivals. He has numerous CDs to his credit, including his recording of

Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations for Virgin Classics Records, which won

the Diapason d’Or and the Choc Monde de la Musique awards in Paris.

In 2002 Anderszewski was honored with the Gilmore Award, a grant

for exceptional pianists who possess broad and profound musicianship and

charisma, and who can sustain a career as a major international concert artist.

He has also received the Royal Philharmonic Society's “Best Instrumentalist”

award, the Szymanowski prize, and support from the Miami-based Patrons 

for Exceptional Artists Foundation. Piotr Anderszewski appears at the National

Gallery by arrangement with Cramer/Marder Artists of New York City.

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Program Notes

Joining the worldwide celebration ofthe 250th anniversary of Wolfgang

Amadeus Mozart’s birth, Piotr Anderszewski opens his recital by pairing

two works by the Austrian genius. Composed seven months apart, the

Fantasy in C Minor, K. 475, and the Sonata in C Minor, K. 457, are generally

performed together. Published in December 1785 by the Viennese firm

Artaria, the works are dedicated to Mozart’s pupil and intimate friend

Therese von Trattner, who was reputed to be highly skilled. According to 

Emily Anderson (1891-1962), who published translations of Mozart’s letters, he wrote at least two letters to von Trattner, but none of them survive. 

The Fantasy looks back to the fantasy form as developed by Carl Philipp

Emanuel Bach (1714-1788), but it also anticipates the explosive dynamic

range of Beethoven and the subtle modulations of Schubert. It features a

chain of contrasting sections, beginning with an opening Adagio, followed

by an Allegro that is full of harmonic variants. A brief, gentle Andantino

leads to a Piii allegro. Near the end ofthe Fantasy the marking Tempo I

appears, signaling the return ofthe opening material and leading into

the Sonata.

The opening movement ofthe sonata, marked Allegro, features a defiant

rising motif. The second movement, Adagio, provides a restful interlude in

a turbulent work. The concluding Rondo: Allegro assai returns to the mood

ofthe opening Allegro.

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By 1823, when Ludwig van Beethoven wrote the Six Bagatelles, op. 126,

he had composed a number of complex works that were considered virtually 

unplayable by his peers, but he could still compose lightly and agreeably, 

as the bagatelles attest. The Harvard Dictionary ofMusic defines a bagatelle

as a short, unpretentious instrumental composition or a musical trifle.

Beethoven wrote some twenty-six bagatelles, the most famous ofwhich

is Fur Elise. In the margin ofthe first Bagatelle’s score Beethoven wrote

the word Kleinigkeiten (little nothings), but when he offered them to his

publisher, B. Schott, in 1825, he remarked that they were probably the

best things ofthe kind he had ever written.

The suite was Johann Sebastian Bach’s favorite form of keyboard composition. Originally used as entertainment in courts, the genre features a succession of dances. The English Suites date from Bach’s time in Coethen and the

early part ofhis stay in Leipzig. One copy ofthe suites, probably produced

by a relative or one of Bach’s pupils, includes the notation “Fait pour les

Anglois.” Johann Forkel, in his 1802 biography of Bach, states that the work 

was composed for a distinguished Englishman. Another theory is that this

notation refers to the suites’ style, as it is known that Bach studied the suites

ofCharles Dieupart (c. 1664-c. 1740), a French musician who had settled in

England. Bach made a copy of Dieupart’s Suite in F Minor and used his Gigue

in A Major as a model for the Prelude ofthe English Suite no. 2, bwv 807.

One of Bach’s most original and brilliant contributions to the keyboard

suite was the opening movement ofthe Suite no. 6, bwv 811. As a whole,

it presents a great variety of stylistic elements, with connections to the eight

keyboard suites of George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) and passing reference to the music of Archangelo Corelli (1653-1713) and, in the Gigue,

Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707).

Program notes by Sorab Modi

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