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

East 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

Concerts are made possible in part through the generosity ofdonors

to the National Gallery ofArt through The Circle. Reserved seating is

available in recognition oftheir support. Please contact the development

office at (202) 842-6450 or circle@nga.gov for more information.

cover: George Bellows, Society Ball [verso], c. 1907, National

Gallery ofArt, Washington, Eugene L. and Marie-Louise Garbaty Fund

The Seventieth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,898th Concert

Leslie Amper, pianist

Presented in honor ofthe exhibition George Bellows

June 24, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

East Building Auditorium

Admissionfree
Program

Three American Sketches

Edward MacDowell (1860-1908)

“The Joy ofAutumn” from Ten New England Idylls, op. 62 (1902)

Henry Cowell (1897-1965)

Tides ofManaunaun (1912)

Amy Beach (1887-1944)

Honeysucklefrom Grandmother’s Garden, op. 97 (1922)

Charles Griffes (1884-1920)

Sonata (1918)

Feroce. Allegretto con moto

Tempo primo. Tranquillamente

Molto tranquillo. Appassionato

Allegro vivace

Charles Ives (1874-1954)

“Thoreau”

from Piano Sonata no. 2 (“Concord, Massachusetts, 1840-1860”)

(1911-1912)

INTERMISSION

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)

Nocturne in E-flat Major, op. 9, no. 2*

Mazurka in G Major, op. 50, no. 1*

Chopin

Preludes, op. 28

No. 3 in G Major (Vivace)

No. 4 in E Minor (Fargo)*

No. 7 in A Major (Andantino)*

No. 19 in E-flat Major (Vivace)

No. 20 in C Minor (Largo)*

No. 21 in B-flat Major (Cantabile)

No. 22 in G Minor (Molto agitato)

No. 23 in F Major (Moderate)

No. 24 in D Minor (Allegro appassionato)

Chopin

Fantasie-Impromptu in C-sharp Minor, op. 66

George Gershwin (1898-1937)

Songs arranged by the composer for solo piano

The Man I Love (1924)

My One and Only (1927)

Do it Again (1922)

I Got Rhythm (1930)

* please see note on page 6
The Musician

Frequently cited in the year-end “Best of Boston” section of The Boston Globe,

pianist Leslie Amper began her career in 1986 with a critically acclaimed 

New York debut. She has gone on to delight audiences in Chicago, New York,

Pittsburgh, and San Francisco as well as at Monadnock Music’s Virtuoso

Piano Series. A member ofthe Alcyon Chamber Ensemble and the Jubilee

Trio, she has also been a regular participant in Boston’s Emmanuel Music

celebrations of composers Brahms, Debussy, Schubert, and Schumann.

Bom in Pittsburgh, Amper took full advantage of a public school program

that allowed serious high school musicians to forego classes for a few hours

each day in order to have adequate practice time and to take advantage of

performance opportunities. She spent her high school summers at the 

Interlochen Music Camp and the Aspen Music Festival. After two years at

Oberlin College, she continued her studies at the New England Conservatory

ofMusic with Rudolph Kolisch, Gunther Schuller, and Russell Sherman.

An acknowledged scholar and practitioner of contemporary music,

Amper has recorded Andrew Imbrie’s Short Story for Neuma Records.

Equally adept at accompanying silent film, she has compiled piano accompaniments at the Harvard Film Archives for the short films of Georges

Melies and F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise, among others. Previous appearances in

Washington include the musical component for the Smithsonian American

Art Museum exhibition 1934: A New Dealfor Artists and the onstage piano

performances in Peter Sellars’ production of Chekhov’s A Seagull at the

National Theatre ofWashington, DC.

Currently teaching at the Longy School of Music at Bard College, the

New England Conservatory Preparatory Department, and Wheaton College,

Leslie Amper has lectured at Boston University, Currier House of Harvard 

University, and the University of Pittsburgh as well as at the New Hampshire Music Festival, where she is a regular performer.

4

Program Notes

With more than 130 paintings, drawings, and lithographs, George Bellows is

the first comprehensive exhibition ofthe artist’s work in more than three

decades. Bellows is arguably the most important figure in the generation

of artists who negotiated the transition from the Victorian to the modern

era in American culture. Beginning with his early signature masterpieces,

the exhibition contains groupings that bring to light other crucial but less

familiar aspects of Bellows’ prodigious achievement, including his Maine

seascapes, sporting scenes, World War 1 subjects, family portraits, and

Woodstock, New York subjects. The exhibition remains on view in the

West Building until October 8, 2012.

This evening’s program begins with American music written between

1902 and 1930, reflecting the period (1906-1924) during which Bellows

produced the paintings in the exhibition. This was a time when many composers were still embracing European styles ofwriting. However, a change

was in the air, and new and independent voices such as Henry Cowell and 

Charles Ives were creating new American music for the new century.

The three musical sketches that open this evening’s program have

nature as their muse. MacDowell and Beach refer to natural phenomena

in a classical vein, reminiscent ofthe Victorian era, whereas Cowell takes

the contemplation abruptly forward to the modern era, with his signature

arm clusters that mimic the waves ofthe sea.

Charles Griffes’ Sonata—strong, dissonant, and relentless—represents

a significant departure from his earlier works. He played the premiere

performance in 1918 at the MacDowell Club of New York, an association 

created “to promote the arts ofmusic, literature, and the drama, architecture,

painting, sculpture, and the other fine arts, and particularly to bring into 

prominence special works of art that are deserving of a broader recognition.”

In 1917 the same club had been the venue for an exhibition ofthe work of

twelve artists that included George Bellows’ Both Members ofThis Club and 

one ofhis nudes.

5
A study ofthe written reflections of George Bellows and Charles Ives

yields some interesting comparisons between their respective philosophies

and approaches to artistic expression. In his correspondence with journalist

Henry Bellamann, Ives wrote, “The fabric of existence weaves itselfwhole.

You cannot set art offin a corner and hope for it to have vitality, reality, and

substance. There can be nothing exclusive about substantial art. It comes 

directly out ofthe heart ofthe experience oflife and thinking about life and

living life.”

Similarly Bellows, in his essay “The Big Idea: George Bellows Talks

about Patriotism for Beauty” (1917) wrote: “I am very amused with people

who talk about lack ofsubjects for painting... .Wherever you go, they are

waiting for you. The men on the docks, the children at the river edge, polo

crowds, prize fights, summer evenings and romance, village folk, young 

people, old people, the beautiful, the ugly.... It seems to me that an artist

must be a spectator oflife; a reverential, enthusiastic spectator, and then

the great dramas ofhuman nature will surge through his mind.”

Even before George Bellows married Emma Story in 1910, she had been

an inspiration for him, making an indelible impression as a strong-minded,

beautiful woman—a student artist who exemplified the ideal “Gibson 

Girl” ofthe early twentieth century. Her pose in Emma at the Piano was

not an artifice; she was, in fact, skilled enough at the piano to accompany 

silent films. She was especially fond of popular music, and played many

ofthe tunes of her day by ear. The Chopin pieces in tonight’s program that

are marked with an asterisk were selected because each ofthem contains a

melody that eventually became a popular song. The Fantaisie Impromptu in

C-shavp Minor, for example, gave rise to “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows,”

composed by Harry Carroll for the 1918 Broadway show Oh, Look!

One ofthe famous New Yorkers who frequented the city’s social circuit 

in the early 1920s was George Gershwin. An avid art lover, he made it a

point to visit homes where he knew there was an art collection, and he paid 

at least one visit to George and Emma Bellows. Gershwin played on Emma’s

Steinway while Bellows was there—one ofthose moments in history that

many a lover ofmusic and art would wish to have shared.

6

Special thanks to Marianne Kearney, George and Emma Bellows’ granddaughter, for invaluable assistance in the preparation ofthese notes and the 

performer’s commentary. She generously answered numerous questions,

provided source materials, and added personal perspective to the research.

Program Notes by Leslie Amper and Stephen Ackert

Next week at the National Gallery ofArt

New York Opera Society

Music by Soler, Llorca, Montsalvatge, and other composers

Presented in honor ofJoan Miro: The Ladder ofEscape

July 1, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Last concert ofthe 2011-2012 season.

Concerts resume on September 5, 2012