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

www.nga.gov

cover: Wassily Kandinsky, Improvisation 31 (Sea Battle), 1913,

National Gallery ofArt, Ailsa Mellon Bruce Fund

The Sixty-ninth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,819th Concert

verge ensemble

“When Kandinsky Met Schonberg:

A Wind from Another Planet”

January 23, 2011

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm 

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Arnold Schonberg (1874-1951)

Drei Klavierstucke, op. 11 (1909)

Massig

Massig

Bewegt

Steve Antosca (b. 1955)

traces ofspirit whispers-1. circulation ofthe light (2003)

Gyorgi Ligeti (1923-2006)

Continuum (1968)

Elliott Carter (b. 1908)

Catenaires (2006)

INTERMISSION

John Cage (1912-1992)

Amores (1943)

John Luther Adams (b. 1953)

Red Arc/Blue Veil (2002)

This concert is made possible in part by support from the 

Randy Hostetler Living Room Music Fund.

The Musicians

VERGE ENSEMBLE

As the modern music ensemble-in-residence at the Corcoran Gallery of Art

and the performing group ofthe Contemporary Music Forum, verge

ensemble actively develops collaborative partnerships with Washington 

institutions and generates innovative performances involving music and

technology. In 2007 verge was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts

grant to create a year-long project promoting American and French music. 

Events included concerts at the Corcoran Gallery, the Festival de musique

Americaine in Paris, and Washington’s Maison Frangaise, as well as at the 

National Gallery. In the 2008-2009 season, verge partnered with the same

institutions and the Corcoran Gallery to create the 3gen Festival, celebrating 

the 100th birth anniversaries of Elliott Carter and Olivier Messiaen. The 

ensemble’s current project—a concert series titled “When Kandinsky Met

Schonberg”—explores the development of expressionist music since 1911,

when the two artists met. In addition to this concert, the series includes a

concert at La Maison Fran^aise subtitled “A Spark ofthe Sacred Fire, A

Rumble ofthe Sacred Voice.” More information about verge ensemble is

available at www.VERGEensemhle.com.

Members ofverge ensemble performing in this concert are:

Audrey Andrist, piano

Steve Antosca, computer

Jenny Lin, piano and harpsichord

Quintin Mallette, percussion

William Richards, percussion

Doug Wallace, percussion

3
Program Notes

On January 2,1911, Wassily Kandinsky attended a concert in Munich that

included several ofArnold Schonberg’s compositions. Kandinsky, who had

heard Schonberg’s music prior to the concert but had not met him, had come

to Munich to be exposed to the avant-garde. He was immediately attracted 

to Schonberg’s newer music, noting that the composer had crossed a crucial

point in his style, motivated only by direct emotional expression. Shortly

thereafter Kandinsky created one of his landmark paintings— Impression in

(Concert) (1911), now in Munich’s Stadtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus. On 

January 18,1911, he wrote to Schonberg: “What we are striving for and our

whole manner ofthought and feeling have so much in common that I feel

completely justified in expressing my empathy.” In his reply, Schonberg 

wrote: “Every formal procedure that aspires to traditional effects is not completely free from conscious motivation. But art belongs to the unconscious!”

Kandinsky invited Schonberg to become a member of an artists’ collective

known as “Der blaue Reiter,” and to submit works for its pending eponymous 

exhibition. Schonberg eagerly accepted, submitting a number ofself-portraits.

(At that time in his life, Schonberg was still undecided as to whether his

career would be in art or in music and was equally active in both endeavors.)

Kandinsky’s work underwent a remarkable transformation between 1911

and 1914, which can be attributed to his contact with the composer and is

documented in the many letters the two men exchanged during those years.

Paintings that represent the transformation include Composition v (1911),

With a Black Arc (1912), and Improvisation ji (Sea Battle) (1913), featured on 

the cover ofthis evening’s program. Kandinsky was concerned with making

painting more abstract by removing figuration from it, and found a collaborator in Schonberg, who had moved away from any sense oftonality in his 

music with the groundbreaking String Quartet no. 2 , op. 10 (1908) and Three

Piano Pieces op. 11 (1909). These works, while not twelve-tone, avoid any hint

oftraditional major or minor tonality. In 1912 Kandinsky published three

essays— Concerning the Spiritual in Art, Der blaue Reiter Almanac, and Klange

4

(Sounds)—by way of clarification ofwhat he (and Schonberg) were doing.

The paintings, the music, and what was written about them at the time had 

a powerful ripple effect in the arts throughout the twentieth century.

Schonberg was widely known early in his musical career for his success

in extending the traditional German Romantic style, exemplified by his 

Verklarte Nacht (Transfigured Night), which was completed in 1899. With

the dawn ofthe new century, he began bold experiments in harmony and 

form, exemplified by FiinfOrchesterstucke (Five Pieces for Orchestra) (1909),

String Quartet no. 2 with Soprano, (1907-1908), Pierrot lunaire (1912), and 

Kammersymphonie no. 2 (1906, revised in 1939). In the 1920s Schonberg 

developed the twelve-tone technique—also referred to as dodecaphonic music

or serialism—a compositional method ofmanipulating an ordered series

of all twelve notes in the chromatic scale. He described it as the “method of

composing with twelve tones which are related only with one another,” in

which the twelve pitches ofthe octave are regarded as equal, and no one note

or tonality is given the emphasis it might have occupied in classical harmony.

His writings on harmony and style in music are still in print and used by

musicians and composers. An influential teacher of composition, his students in Vienna included Alban Berg and Anton Webern. After immigrating

to the United States, he taught at the University of Southern California,

where his students included John Cage and Lou Harrison.

For Schonberg, as for many early twentieth-century composers, the 

piano was the instrument for experimentation. He wrote Drei Klavierstucke

at an important moment in the evolution of his compositional style. The

first two movements, both marked Massig (moderate), are significant early

examples ofthe composer’s abandonment ofthe remnants oftraditional 

tonality. The second opens with a hypnotic ostinato bass in the left hand and 

a continually changing cycle of chords in the right, leading into a static,

time-suspending episode in the middle, where a series of descending trills

transitions into the final set of chords and the return ofthe basso ostinato.

The final movement, marked Bewegt (with motion), is briefyet powerful,

breaking through all constraints oftraditional language or structure. It shifts

5
abruptly from extremes of eruptive power, as in the massively congested

opening, to moments ofpassionate introspection. It builds to extreme

intensity, only to end delicately and quietly.

Steve Antosca, an American composer who lives and teaches in the

Washington, DC, area, integrates instruments with computers for real-time

processing and prerecorded audio processing and spatialization. He has

received a Fromm commission from Harvard University, a McKim commission from the Library ofCongress, and support from Meet the Composer,

the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Argosy Foundation Contemporary Music Fund. His violin and computer composition One Becomes Two

was selected as a winner in the electroacoustic music with instruments

category ofthe Thirty-sixth Bourges International Competitions. In the

format of a series of concerts and lectures titled “crossingPOiNT,” Antosca

has collaborated with American University, the Library ofCongress, the

Peabody Institute, the Smithsonian Institution, the University ofCalifornia

Washington Center, and the University of Maryland. The recipient of a

master’s degree in computer music composition from the Peabody Conservatory ofJohns Hopkins University, Steve Antosca is the artistic director of

verge ensemble and the National Gallery ofArt New Music Ensemble. He

maintains a website at www.steveantosca.com.

traces ofspirit whispers is a set ofseven pieces for piano, computer, processed piano samples, and voice, circulation ofthe light is the first piece of

the set. The text for the composition is extracted from the Taoist manuscripts

The Secret ofthe Golden Flower and Hui Ming Ching—The Book ofConsciousness

and Life, ancient manuals on the art ofmeditation. An element ofTaoism is

the desire to preserve, in a transfigured form, the idea ofthe person, through

the traces left by experience, traces ofspirit whispers suggests these transfigurations through extended piano techniques, computer processed piano samples, and evocative transformations and traces ofspoken word, circulation of

the light features piano samples of prepared piano, bowed piano, and extended

piano techniques that were recorded, then transformed through computer

processing. The text for the piece, which follows, was likewise recorded,

6

computer processed, organized into a flowing narrative, and combined with

the piano audio.

circulation ofthe light, make the light circulate:

which works from without that is the deepest

upon what lies within. and most wonderful secret.

when the light is made to move

in a circle,

all the energies of heaven

and earth,

ofthe light and the dark

are crystallized.

circulation ofthe light—

the backward-flowing

movement.

the way ofthe Golden

Flower depends on

the backward-flowing

movement.

Hungarian composer Gyorgi Ligeti studied at the Franz Liszt Academy

in Budapest, where he began teaching in 1950. His early music followed in

the style of Bela Bartok and Zoltan Kodaly, often making use offolk songs.

In 1956, as a result ofthe unrest that eventually led to the Soviet invasion of

Hungary, Ligeti fled to Vienna, and later settled in Germany. In Cologne, 

Ligeti began writing his first electronic compositions, influenced by Karlheinz

Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez. He worked in the electronic music studio at 

Cologne and taught at the Darmstadt summer institute. His position in

twentieth-century music as a composer schooled in traditional forms who

created adventurous new sounds led him to tell the New York Times: “I am in

a prison. One wall is the avant-garde, the other is the past. I want to escape.”

About Continuum, which he composed for harpsichord in 1968, Ligeti

wrote:

I thought to myself, what about composing a piece that would

be a paradoxically continuous sound... but that would have to

consist ofinnumerable thin slices ofsalami? I call this style

of composition “pattern-meccanico,” an “auditory streaming”

process in which extremely fast and even pitch successions

7
gradually unfold, creating a smooth, evolving musical texture. A

harpsichord has an easy touch; it can be played very fast, almost 

fast enough to reach the level of continuum, but not quite—it

takes about eighteen separate sounds per second to reach the

threshold where the listener can no longer make out individual

notes, and the limit set by the mechanism ofthe harpsichord is

about fifteen to sixteen notes a second. The score is marked

“prestissimo,” that is, extremely fast, so that the individual tones 

can hardly be perceived, but rather merge into a continuum.

Play very evenly, without articulation of any sort.

Ligeti also states that the correct tempo has been reached when the piece

lasts less than four minutes.

Continuum has been characterized as a composition based on granular

synthesis concepts, heard as a continuous sound that emerges through the

blending oflarge numbers of very small grains. Two contrary cells oftrilling

and waves ofthree- four- or five-note runs are played incessantly. Gradual

changes occur, relying on the organization and merging oftiny sound grains

into larger sonic events. The human ear perceives this blurring process as a

continuous sound.

Elliott Carter, who celebrated his 102nd birthday on December 11, 2010,

was born in New York City. He attended Harvard University from 1926 to

1932, where he studied with Walter Piston. Carter followed that period of

study by going abroad to Paris, where, like many ofthe great composers of

his generation, he honed his technique under the tutelage ofthe legendary

French pedagogue Nadia Boulanger, studying privately with her from 1932 to

1935. He returned to America to devote his time to composing and held teaching posts at various institutions, including Saint John’s College in Annapolis,

Maryland; the Peabody Conservatory, Columbia University, Queens College

in New York, Yale University, Cornell University, and finally the Juilliard

School of Music, where he joined the faculty in 1972 at age sixty-four.

Of Catenaires, the composer wrote; “When Pierre-Laurent Aimard, who

performs so eloquently, asked me to write a piece for him, I became obsessed

with the idea of a fast one-line piece with no chords. It became a continuous

chain of notes using different spacings, accents, and colorings, to produce a

wide variety of expression.” Aimard played the world premiere performance

of Catenaires on December 11, 2006—Carter’s ninety-eighth birthday—at

Zankel Hall in New York. Catenaires are the curves formed by a wire or chain

hanging freely from two points that are on the same horizontal level, such

as might occur in a bridge structure. Here Carter reduces the keyboard texture

to flowing left-hand and right-hand lines that form arcs without any vertical, 

i.e. harmonic, element. Marked Jaillissant (Gushing), the rapid stream of

notes constantly fluctuates in register, reaching the highest note on the piano

just before the end ofthe piece, then disappearing into the instrument’s

lowest sonority through a seamless flow of notes.

John Cage was among the most influential and controversial composers

ofthe American avant-garde. His inventive compositions and unorthodox

ideas profoundly influenced and altered mid-twentieth-century music. Cage

briefly attended Pomona College and then traveled in Europe for a time.

Returning to the United States in 1931, he studied music with Henry Cowell

(1897-1965) and Arnold Schonberg. Schonberg told Cage he would tutor

him for free on the condition he devoted his life to music. Cage readily

agreed, but stopped lessons after two years when it became clear to him that

he had, in his own words, “no feeling for harmony.” Schonberg famously

described Cage as “not a composer, but an inventor—of genius.”

On hearing Amores for the first time, one may be struck and perhaps

even puzzled by the variety ofCage’s materials. It is challenging, at times,

to understand just how its four movements are connected to one another—

how these seemingly disparate entities could add up to a single, unified

composition. Cage’s intent is to create a sense ofunity through a process

ofmaximizing diversity. The structure ofAmores is based on principles of

discontinuity and dissociation, rather than continuity and connection. Viewed

in these terms, Amores represents an instance ofmaximal diversity, both

with respect to method and materials, as well as an instance ofthe integration of opposites. As such, the form ofthe entire piece may be perceived as a

reflection ofthe limitless possibilities that composers have at their disposal

in the creation oftheir musical designs. Recognizing that there is no single

“correct” way to integrate materials and compositional methodologies, Cage

seeks an expression ofthe full range ofsuch possibilities.

9
From his home in Alaska, composer John Luther Adams has created a

unique musical world grounded in the elemental landscapes and indigenous

cultures ofthe North. His music includes works for orchestra, small ensembles, percussion, and electronic media, and can be found in recordings on

the Cold Blue, New World, and New Albion labels. Adams has worked with

many prominent performers and venues, including Almeida Opera, Arena

Stage, Bang On A Can, the California E. A. R. Unit, flux Quartet, the Paul 

Dresher Ensemble, Percussion Group Cincinnati, and the Sundance Institute.

He has received awards and fellowships from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, Lila Wallace Arts Partners, Meet the Composer,

the National Endowment for the Arts, Opera America, and the Rockefeller 

Foundation. Named the 2010 winner ofthe Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize

in Music Composition, he has taught at the University ofAlaska, Bennington

College, and the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, and has served as

president ofthe American Music Center. More information about Adams

and his music is available at www.johnlutheradams.com.

In his notes for the score of Red Arc/Blue Veil, Adams writes:

[It] is the first piece in a projected cycle exploring the geometry

oftime and color—what Kandinsky called “those inner sounds

that are the life ofthe colors.” As in all ofmy recent music, I

imagine the entire ensemble (piano, percussion, and processed 

sounds) as a single instrument, and the entire piece as a single

complex sonority. The processed sounds are derived directly

from the acoustical instruments. In Red Arc/Blue Veil, the

electronic sounds are layered in tempo relationships ofthree, 

five, and seven, while the piano and mallet percussion trace a

single arc, rising and falling from beginning to end.

Red Arc/Blue Veil was commissioned and premiered by Ensemble Sirius.

Program notes based on material provided by Steve Antosca

Notes on Amores by Thomas DeLio

10

Next week at the National Gallery ofArt

Victor Goldberg, pianist

Music by Brahms, Mendelssohn,

Mozart, and Scriabin

January 30, 2011

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

National Gallery ofArt Vocal Ensemble

Gregorian chant and

music by Italian composers

February 2, 2011

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building, West Garden Court