For the convenience of concertgoers 

the Garden Cafe remains open until 3:00 pm on weekdays.

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.

Music Department

National Gallery of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

Mailing address

2000b South Club Drive

Landover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

cover: Paul Stevenson Oles, 1971, National Gallery ofArt Archives

The Billy Rose Foundation

Concerts

National Gallery of Art

Presented in honor ofthe 

centenary of Paul Mellon’s birth and 

performed on the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Steinway

May 2, 9, 16, 23, and 30, and June 6, 2007

Wednesday Afternoons, 12:10 pm

East Building Auditorium

Admissionfree
Philip Alexius de Laszlo, Ailsa Mellon Bruce, 1926

National Gallery of Art, Washington

Introduction

As the National Gallery celebrates the centenary ofthe birth of Paul Mellon

(1907-1999), his generosity and that ofthe entire Mellon family, including

Paul’s wife, Bunny, and his beloved sister, Ailsa Mellon Bruce (1901-1969),

will be remembered. In 1940 Mrs. Mellon Bruce established the Avalon

Foundation, which, among other things, funds the Gallery’s Andrew W.

Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts. In 1946 she designated funds for the

Gallery’s purchase ofAmerican art and later made possible the acquisition

ofmany old master works. Both she and her brother contributed large gifts

to finance construction ofthe East Building, but Mrs. Mellon Bruce did not

live to see its groundbreaking. Fler bequest to the Gallery included an endowment fund and her own exquisite collection ofsmall paintings by the French

impressionists. One ofher posthumous gifts to the Gallery was the Steinway 

Model B grand piano, serial number 403,392, that she bought in 1967. This

special series ofWednesday afternoon recitals features the piano, newly

refurbished for the occasion. In addition to these recitals, the Paul Mellon

centenary will be marked by special exhibitions of art donated by the Mellon

family; lectures; Gallery talks; a new documentary film, Paul Mellon: In His

Own Words; and a Benny Goodman-style jazz concert by Eddie Daniels and

Ensemble on June 10 at 3:00 pm in the East Building Atrium. This concert

will help visitors recall how Mellon was surprised on his eightieth birthday by

his wife, at one ofthe first dinners in the East Building, when Benny Goodman suddenly appeared and performed some of Mellon’s favorite tunes.

Information about Gallery programs that celebrate the centenary can be

found at www.nga.gov/press/200y/mdlon.shtm.

3
The Billy Rose Foundation

The concerts on the Ailsa Mellon Bruce Steinway are made possible by a generous grant from the Billy Rose Foundation. Lyricist and Broadway producer

Billy Rose was born William Samuel Rosenberg in 1899 to Jewish-American

parents living in New York City. In his youth, he was a champion shorthand

typist and served presidential adviser Bernard Baruch in that capacity during World War 1. Rose is best known as the writer or cowriter ofthe lyrics for

the hit songs Great Day (with Edward Eliscu), I Found a Million Dollar Baby

(with Mort Dixon), It’s Only a Paper Moon (with E.Y. Flarburg), and Me and My

Shadow. He went on to become a Broadway producer and the owner of New

York theaters and nightclubs. In 1938 he opened Billy Rose’s Diamond Horseshoe. At the 1939 New York World’s Fair he produced “Billy Rose’s Aquacade,”

which starred Olympian swimmer Eleanor Holm. The show continued at the

Diamond Horseshoe after the fair closed and later featured Esther Williams 

and Johnny Weissmuller, before they became Hollywood stars. Hit musicals

including William Saroyan’s Onefor the Money, starring Gene Kelly, and Oscar

Hammerstein’s Carmen Jones premiered at the club, which remained open

until 1951.

Rose died in 1966 in New York City'. His will provided for the Billy Rose

Foundation, which supports the Billy Rose Sculpture Garden in Jerusalem

and various projects in the arts, education, and health research.

4

2,617th Concert

May 2, 2007

Thomas Hrynkiw, pianist

Program performed without intermission

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, bwv 861

From The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 (1722)

Prelude and Fugue in F Minor, bwv 881

From The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2 (1738-1742)

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

Sonata no. 13 in C-sharp Minor, op. 27, no. 2 (Moonlight) (1801)

Adagio sostenuto

Allegretto

Presto agitato; adagio

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)

Nocturne in F Major, op. 15, no. 1 (1830)

Nocturne in Dflat Major, op. 27, no. 2 (1835)

Waltz in C-sharp Minor, op. 64, no. 2 (1829)

Scherzo in B-flat Minor, op. 31 (1837)

Iosyf Vytvyts’kyi (1813-1866)

Ukrainka

Rob Prester

Sonata in F Minor

Allegro appassionata

Andante

Allegro con agitato
The Musician

Hailed as a pianist of dramatic power and poetry, Thomas Hrynkiw has

been performing in public since he was thirteen. At age nineteen he won a

competition for which the first prize was the opportunity to perform Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto no. r with Leopold Stokowski conducting. In 1967 

Hrynkiw won the gold medal at the Geneva International Music Competition as well as the Harold Bauer Award, the Frank Huntington Beebe Award,

and the Music Teachers National Association Achievement Award. He has

also received grants from the Institute of International Education. In addition to a previous appearance at the National Gallery (as pianist for baritones

Peter and Paul Armin Edelmann), Hrynkiw has played at Constitution Hall,

the Kennedy Center, the Library ofCongress, and Lincoln Center, as well as

in the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series at the Art Institute ofChicago. He has performed regularly at the Newport Music Festival in Rhode

Island and served as musical advisor to the festival director.

6

Program Notes

Before Johann Sebastian Bach’s generation, composers thought of keys

with four or more sharps or flats as theoretically possible but did not write

music in them. However, with the advent of “tempered” tuning of keyboard

instruments, which allowed for composition in these previously unexplored

keys, Bach wrote one prelude and one fugue in each key for both volumes

of The Well-Tempered Clavier. The Prelude in F Minor from Book 2 gained

unexpected popularity' in 1963, when the Swingle Singers included their

vocal transcription ofit in their album Bach’s Greatest Flits, which became an

international best-seller.

Written in the first year ofthe nineteenth century, Ludwig van Beethoven’s

Sonata no. 13, op. 27, no. 2 (known as the Moonlight Sonata), epitomizes the

beginning ofthe romantic period in piano music. As is the case with most

of Beethoven’s works, he did not designate the nickname for this sonata, but

he did dedicate it to one ofhis pupils, Countess Giulietta Guicciardi, using

her nickname, Julie. Among the many pianists who favored this sonata and

performed it frequently was Franz Liszt (1811-1886), who called its second

movement “a flower between two abysses.”

Frederic Chopin was only the second composer to write nocturnes for 

the piano (the first was Irishman John Field [1782-1837]), but he brought

unsurpassed levels ofintrospection and subjectivity to the genre. Taking a cue

from the French poet Alfred de Musset (1810-1857), who wrote, “Les plus

deseperes sont les chants les plus beaux” (the saddest songs are the most beautiful songs), Chopin released his sadness and nostalgia in the form offlorid 

nocturne melodies that often begin with a dramatic downward sweep, exemplified by the opening measures ofthe Nocturne in D-Jlat Major, op. 27, no. 2.

In contrast, Chopin seems to have used the waltz as an opportunity to

have some fun. His early waltzes are quite straightforward and may have 

been played for social dancing. By the time he wrote the waltzes in op. 64,

however, he had developed a style with many variations in tempo (rubato)

and other surprises. These later works, which came to be known as salon

7
waltzes, proved a delight for the seated listener but impossible for unrehearsed dancing. As with the nocturne, Chopin elevated the scherzo— 

which in the classical period had been the ‘'comic relief" movement in symphonies and other large works—to a high art. His scherzos have a narrative

character, exploring both ecstasy and tragedy in full measure.

Composer, pianist, and teacher losyf Vytvyts’kyi studied music with his

father, an organist in Berdychiv, Ukraine. losyfthen himselftaught music in

various provinces of Ukraine, finishing his career with a four-year tenure in

Kiev (1860-1864). Ukrainian geography and folk culture inspired much of

his music, including Plavba Dniprom (Sailing on the Dnieper River), U susida

khata bila (The Neighbor’s White Cottage), and Chumak (The Salt Porter).

Program notes by Stephen Ackert and Sorab Modi

2,619th Concert

May 9, 2007

Tao Lin, pianist

Program performed without intermission

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Sonata in C Major, Hob. xvi^o (1794-1795)

Allegro 

Adagio 

Allegro molto

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Klavierstucke, op. 119 (1892)

No. 1: Intermezzo: Adagio

No. 2: Intermezzo: Andantino un poco agitato

No. 3: Intermezzo: Grazioso e giocoso

No. 4: Rhapsodie: Allegro risoluto

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)

Four Mazurkas, op. 68 (published 1855)

No. 1 in C Major: Vivace

No. 2 in A Minor: Lento

No. 3 in F Major: Allegro, ma non troppo

No. 4 in F Minor: Andantino

Chopin

Sonata no. 3 in B Minor, op. 58 (1845)

Allegro maestoso

Scherzo: Molto vivace

Largo

Finale: Presto, non tanto
The Musician

Tao Lin's appearances in Asia, Europe, and North America have earned him

unanimous critical accolades for his subtle pianism and brilliant technique.

Born into a musical family in Shanghai, China, Lin was admitted to the

Shanghai Conservatory of Music at age eight. He won numerous prizes in

rapid succession, culminating with the Alexander Tcherepnin Award. Since 

his arrival in the United States, Lin has earned top prizes in the competitions ofthe Music Teachers National Association and the National Society

of Arts and Letters, as well as in the Palm Beach International Invitational

Piano Competition, among others. In addition to recitals in major venues

in Asia, Europe, and the United States, he has performed with the Knoxville

Civic Orchestra, the Miami Chamber Orchestra, the University of Miami

Symphony Orchestra, and the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra.

A devoted chamber musician, Lin is a founding member ofthe Berlin

Piano Quartet (consisting ofhimself and the Jacques Thibaud String Trio)

and has been featured as a guest artist with many other distinguished string

quartets. He has collaborated with such esteemed soloists as Charles Castleman, Ida Haendel, Roberta Peters, Philip Quint, Sergiu Schwartz, and Eugenia Zuckerman, and studied with Ivan Davis, Leon Fleischer, Stephen Hough,

Joseph Kalichstein, John Perry, Robert Rust, and Rita Sloan. Lin’s recordings

for the Piano Lovers record label include works by Mily Balakirev, Beethoven, 

Mozart, and Schubert. Tao Lin appears at the National Gallery by arrangement

with Lisa Sapinkopf Artists of Emeryville, California.

xo

Program Notes

Joseph Haydn is unique among the great composers in that he was largely 

self-taught. None of his teachers were pianists, so it is remarkable that he

would have composed more than fifty piano sonatas, many of which are 

highly esteemed works of concert repertoire. He inherited a standard sonata

model—a fast opening movement in sonata-allegro form, a slow middle

movement in song or rondo form, and a fast final movement in rondo or

sonata-allegro form—from Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) and

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710-1784), with whose works he was well

acquainted. But Haydn was an innovator; nine of his sonatas have only two

movements, and two sonatas are expanded to include four movements. He

also introduced the theme and variations and the minuet as forms for sonata

movements. The sonatas he wrote in 1794 and 1795, which include the

Sonata in C Major, Hob. xvi^o, are his last works for solo piano, although

he continued to be prolific for another twelve years. They are masterpieces

that introduce movements in hybrid forms (such as double variations and

rondo-sonatas) and exemplify Haydn’s virtuosity, harmonic audacity, and

lyric suavity.

Johannes Brahms is universally admired as a composer who united

impressive formal architecture and lyrical sensitivity in music. The four

pieces he published as op. 119 are his last works for solo piano and can be

seen as his final testament for the instrument. The opening theme ofthe

Intermezzo no. 1 is a subdued musical rumination; the second theme is

somewhat brighter, but the overall mood of resignation prevails. Intermezzo

no. 2 continues the atmosphere ofsw'eet melancholy, carried to a more optimistic level by the songlike middle section. Intermezzo no. 3 paints a more

powerful picture, with diverse harmonies and accented rhythms. It seems

that Brahms was intent on continuing the increasing intensity of the music

with the fourth piece but no longer found the intermezzo genre adequate,

instead launching into a rhapsody (Allegro risoluto) with dramatic chords

11
and a heroic main theme. The middle section provides contrast by returning

to the gentler mood ofthe first two intermezzi, but before long, the mighty 

first theme returns, overwhelming the delicate interlude with a grand

extended reprise.

Frederic Chopin’s mazurkas are not as openly patriotic as his polonaises, 

but they are, in the words of Robert Schumann (1810-1856), “guns buried

in flowers.” The mazurka is a dance of Polish origin with heroic overtones,

characterized by an accent on the second (or sometimes third) ofthe three

beats in the measure. Chopin occasionally used modal harmonies in his 

mazurkas, another element borrowed from Polish folk music. Like his

waltzes, Chopin’s early mazurkas are straightforward enough that it would

be possible to dance to them, but his later examples in both genres, including the mazurkas of op. 68 (heard in this program) and op. 59 (which will

be performed in this recital series by Brian Ganz on May 23), are amplified 

and stylized.

Having stretched the sonata form almost beyond recognition in his

Piano Sonata no. 2, op. 35, Chopin turned back to a more classical approach 

in his third and last work in the genre, the Sonata no. 3 in B Minor, op. 58.

Whereas the former is fantastic and histrionic, the latter is intimate and

profound. The energy ofthe opening Allegro maestoso is subdued by two contrasting themes, one light and the other lyrical. The brilliant Scherzo: Molto

vivace has a nostalgic trio. The Largo presents an inspired melody within 

the boundaries ofthe traditional song form (aba), and the vigorous finale,

marked Presto, non tanto, is a cleanly rendered rondo (abacada).

Program notes by Stephen Ackert and Sorab Modi

12

2,621st Concert

May 16, 2007

Marta Felcman, pianist

Program performed without intermission

Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757)

Sonata in D Minor, K. 64

Sonata in C Major, K. 159

Sonata in B Minor, K. 27

Carlos Guastavino (1912-2000)

Three Cantilenas from Diez Cantilenas Argentinas (1958)

No. 1: Santa Fe para llorar 

No. 6: Juanita 

No. 8: Santa Fe antiguo

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Suite bergamasque (1905)

Prelude 

Menuet 

Clair de lune

Passepied

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)

Polonaise in C-sharp Minor, op. 26, no. 1 (1831)

Etude in A-flat Major, op. 25, no. 1 (1835-1837)

Etude in C Minor, op. 25, no. 12 (Ocean) (1835-1837)

Scherzo in C-sharp Minor, op. 39, no. 3 (1839)
The Musician

After having won a number ofimportant piano competitions in her native

Argentina. Marta Felcman quickly established herselfinternationally as a

recitalist, soloist, and chamber musician. Critics have praised her “musical

sophistication” (Washington Post), and her performance in Richmond, Virginia, was hailed as “one ofthe finest recitals in this writer’s memory'... power 

and dexterity... pure musical enjoyment” (Richmond Times). Felcman has 

appeared in such prestigious venues as the Salon Dorado ofthe Teatro Colon

in Buenos Aires, the Herbst Theater in San Francisco, the Musikverein in

Vienna, Weill Recital Hall in New York, and the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art 

Museum at Rutgers University. Among the many festivals in which she has

been featured as a guest performer are the Bach Festival of Philadelphia and

the Summer Festival in Toulouse, France. In addition to her frequent performances, Felcman conducts master classes at colleges and universities.

Felcman’s musical development has been influenced by a succession of

distinguished teachers, the first ofwhom was the Argentine pianist Hebe

Brandenburg. She subsequently studied with Paul Badura-Skoda and Hans

Graf at the Musikhochschule in Vienna, Peter Katin and Louis Kentner in

London, and Rosalyn Tureck in New York. Felcman’s debut CD was released

in September 2002 and includes works by J. S. Bach, Carlos Guastavino,

Ned Rorem, Domenico Scarlatti, and Robert Schumann. Her second CD,

issued in September 2006 by Eroica Classical Recordings, is devoted to

works by Schumann. Marta Felcman appears at the National Gallery by

arrangement with Lisa SapinkopfArtists of Emeryville, California.

Program Notes

Although his instrument of choice was the harpsichord, Domenico Scarlatti

created exquisite miniatures that are treasured by both harpsichordists and

pianists, and that astound listeners when played on either instrument. Almost

all ofhis more than five hundred sonatas conform to the same simple structure: two sections of about equal length, both ofwhich are repeated. In each

short sonata, Scarlatti explored the full range ofthe keyboard as it existed in

his time, using at least two different keys to present several themes. Some 

ofthe pieces show Spanish influence, which is not surprising, since this

Italian composer spent most ofhis career in the service ofthe Spanish royal

family in Madrid.

Carlos Guastavino was born in Argentina’s Santa Fe province. One of

the foremost Argentine composers ofthe twentieth century, he wrote more

than two hundred works, most ofthem songs for piano and voice. Guastavino maintained a conservative style firmly rooted in the late nineteenthcentury romantic nationalist tradition. A talented pianist, he performed

his works in London in 1947 and 1948, and in 1949 the BBC Symphony

Orchestra premiered the orchestral version of his Tres romances Argentinos.

In 1956 Guastavino toured the Soviet Union and China, performing his

pieces for piano and voice.

Claude Debussy’s Suite bergamasque recalls an earlier golden age in

French music, the seventeenth century, when church modes still prevailed

and composers such as Francois Couperin (1668-1733) ar>d Jean-Baptiste

Lully (1632-1687) wrote suites of dances for the harpsichord. The most

famous piece from the Suite bergamasque, Clair de lune, is not a dance,

although it might be understood as a modernization ofthe sarabande.

However, the improvisatory Prelude, the courtly Menuet, and the lively

Passepied take both their titles and their charming effects from the French

dance suite, already more than two hundred years old by Debussy’s time.
The polonaise is a type ofmusic characterized by an energetic rhythm

in a specific pattern of dotted eighth and sixteenth notes that has accompanied noble processions in Poland since the seventeenth century'. This form

was used to great effect in works by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) and 

Carl Maria von Weber (1786-1826), among others, before Frederic Chopin’s

time. Here again, one finds Chopin expanding and transforming an inherited

form, even in his first use ofit in the Polonaise in C-sharp Minor, op. 26, no. 1.

The piece evokes the gallantry ofthe ancient Poles with brisk rhythms, sharp 

accents, and heightened dynamic contrasts, and the tempo Allegro maestoso

reminds the performer that this music must retain a majestic character.

Taking a cue from Muzio Clementi (1752-1832), who published a

series of keyboard studies, or etudes, in a volume titled Gradus ad Pamassum (Steps to [Mount] Parnassus), Chopin produced two sets of etudes, one 

published as op. 10 and the other as op. 25. Each piece explores a particular 

pianistic challenge. Op. 25, no. 1, calls upon the pianist to produce shimmering effects, not unlike the shimmering brushstrokes of the impressionist painters. Op. 25, no. 12, is sometimes called the Ocean Etude due to the 

waves of arpeggios that run throughout the work. Passionate extremes 

are pronounced, and the atmosphere is stormy.

As with Chopin’s Scherzo in B-flat Minor, op. 31, played earlier in this

series by Thomas Hrynkiw, the Scherzo in C-sharp Minor, op. 39, no. 3, has 

a narrative character, exploring both ecstasy and tragedy in full measure.

Although op. 39 is not as familiar as op. 31, the former surpasses the latter

in sheer beauty and skillful structural layout. Chopin broke new rhythmic

ground in the opening figure by fitting four quarter notes into a triple meter.

The scherzo unfolds with an impressive range of effects that includes 

Mendelssohnian staccatos, a rich, sonorous passage in D-flat major, and a

reduction ofthe texture for several measures to bare block chords.

Program notes by Stephen Ackert and Sorab Modi

16

2,623rd Concert

May 23, 2007

Brian Ganz, pianist

Program performed without intermission

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)

Three Mazurkas, op. 59 (1845)

No. 1 in A Minor

No. 2 in A-flat Major

No. 3 in F-sharp Minor

Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

From Consolations (1849-1850)

No. 1 in E Major: Andante con moto 

No. 2 in E Major: Un poco piu mosso 

No. 3 in D-flat Major: Lento placido

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Estampes (1903)

Pagodes

Soiree dans Grenade 

Jardins sous la pluie

Liszt

From Grand Etudes after Paganini (1838)

No. 3 in G-sharp Minor (La Campanella)

No. 4 in E Major

Chopin

Etude in E Major, op. 10, no. 3 (1832)

Etude in C-sharp Minor, op. 10, no. 4 (1832)

Etude in A-flat Major, op. 25, no. 1

(Aeolian Harp or Shepherd’s Boy) (1837)

Etude in C Minor, op. 25, no. 12 (1835-1837)
The Musician

Brian Ganz is widely regarded as one ofthe leading pianists of his generation. He was the winner of one oftwo grand prizes awarded in the 1989

Marguerite Long-Jacques Thibaud International Piano Competition in Paris,

where he was also awarded special prizes for the best recital and the best 

performance of a specified work. That same year, he won a Beethoven

Fellowship, presented by the American Pianists Association, and in 199T

he was a silver medalist in the Queen Elisabeth International Music Competition of Belgium.

Ganz has appeared as soloist with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, 

the City of London Sinfonia, L’Orchestre Lamoureux, L’Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo, the National Symphony Orchestra, and the

Taipei Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as with the symphony orchestras of

Baltimore, Memphis, Saint Louis, and Saint Petersburg, Russia. In 2001

he began a project with Maestoso Records to record the complete works of

Erederic Chopin. Ganz was also recently chosen as the performing artist

among the editors of a compilation ofvarious works by Chopin for the new 

Schirmer Performance Editions Series (published jointly by Hal Leonard

Corporation and G. Schirmer, Incorporated). A volume of Ganz’s recordings

of Chopin preludes was published in the summer of 2005, and a volume of

waltzes is scheduled for release in 2007.

Ganz is artist-in-residence at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, where he 

has been a member ofthe piano faculty since 1986. In 2000 he joined the

piano faculty ofthe Peabody Institute ofthe Johns Hopkins University in

Baltimore. He appears at the National Gallery by arrangement with Mariedi

Anders Artists Management and California Artists Management, Inc., of

San Francisco, California.

18

Program Notes

Frederic Chopin’s mazurkas are not as openly patriotic as his polonaises,

but they are, in the words of Robert Schumann (1810-1856), “guns buried

in flowers.” The mazurka is a dance of Polish origin with heroic overtones,

characterized by an accent on the second (or sometimes third) ofthe three 

beats in the measure. Chopin occasionally used modal harmonies in his

mazurkas, another element borrowed from Polish folk music. Like his 

waltzes, Chopin’s early mazurkas are straightforward enough that it would

be possible to dance to them, but his later examples in both genres, including the mazurkas of op. 59 (heard in this program) and op. 68 (played

earlier in this recital series by Tao Lin), are amplified and stylized.

Lranz Liszt was a true son of the romantic age—spiritual yet worldly,

flamboyant yet introspective, intellectual yet unapologetically dramatic. He

wrote his Consolations between 1849 and 1850, at the beginning of one of 

the most productive penods ofhis life. They were inspired by an eponymous 

set of poems by Joseph Delorme (1804-1869), who used the pseudonym 

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve. Like the poems, Liszt’s pieces communicate

a sense ofunfulfilled hope. Although the first two Consolations share the

same key (E major), they contrast with one another in mood, the first meditative and the second lilting and lyrical. The third Consolation, marked Lento

placido, was inspired by the nocturnes of Chopin. It features an elegant cantilena melody over a broken-chord accompaniment. As the emotional fervor

increases, the melody doubles in soaring octaves, and the piece finishes with

a quick cadenza.

As he did on many occasions, Claude Debussy turned to the vocabulary

ofthe visual arts to name the Estampes (Engravings), a set of character pieces

he published in 1903. Pagodes (Pagodas) uses a pentatonic scale to call to

mind the Ear East. Soiree dans Grenade (Evening in Granada) received accolades from Spanish composer Manuel de Lalla (1876-1946), who said,

“Soiree dans Grenade approaches the marvelous when it is borne in mind

that [it was] written by a foreigner guided almost exclusively by the visions

19
of his genius... .There is not a bar directly borrowed from Spanish folk

music, and yet the wdiole piece to its smallest detail is redolent of Spain.”

Jardins sous la pluie (Gardens in the Rain) evokes the texture offalling rain

and flowing water and has the added delight of quotations from two French

children’s songs: Nous n’irons plus au bois (We Will Not Go to the Woods

Again) and Dodo, l’enfant, do (Lullaby, Child, Lullaby).

Liszt was fascinated and inspired by his fellow virtuoso and older contemporary, violinist Niccolo Paganini (1782-1840). Liszt expressed his admiration in music with six Grand Etudes after Paganini, which he first published in

1838. In 1851 he republished simpler versions ofthem, having been told by the

dedicatee, Clara Schumann (1819-1896), and numerous other pianists that

the etudes were impossible to play in their original form. La Campanella (The

Little Bell) is an Italian tune that Paganini used as the recurring rondo in the

last movement of his Violin Concerto in B Minor, op. 7 (1826). The fourth etude

brings to the piano the far-flung spiccato arpeggios and rapidly descending

thirds that held Paganini’s listeners spellbound as he performed them on 

the violin.

Chopin’s Etude in E Major, op. 10, no. 3, has the essence of a nocturne

rather than a traditional technical study. It has been called a tone poem in

miniature, and the cantabile phrasing reveals the composer’s great love of

opera. A famous anecdote relates how Chopin broke down and cried out, 

“Oh, my homeland!” while teaching this particular work to Adolf Gutmann

(1819-1880). The Etude in C-sharp Minor, op. 10, no. 4, is something of a

foil to its immediate predecessor. No. 4 is a magnificent gesture of velocity

and fiery abandon that few etudes can rival. The music builds to a massive

climax, culminating in the arrival ofthe fortississimo dynamic in the seventieth bar.

The first etude of op. 25 has been dubbed both the Aeolian Harp, on 

account ofits continuously undulating arpeggios, and the Shepherd’s Boy.

The latter nickname owes its existence to Chopin’s remark (also made to a

student) that when playing the piece, he thought of a young shepherd taking

refuge from an approaching storm in a quiet grotto—as the rumblings of

20

the storm approach in the background, the shepherd plays a simple tune on

his flute. (Of course, unless the student—or shepherd—had a sturdy fifth 

finger on his right hand, he might have had difficulty playing Chopin’s “simple tune.”) The Etude in C Minor, op. 25, no. 12, uses arpeggios to create the

effect ofsurging waves and strong undercurrents. It calls to mind orchestral

works inspired by the sea, such as Ravel’s La Mer.

Program notes by Stephen Ackert and Sorab Modi

21
2,624th Concert 

May 30, 2007

Stephen Prutsman, pianist

Program performed without intermission

Stephen Prutsman (b. i960)

Tannery Pond (2000)

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

From The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2 (1738-1742)

Prelude and Fugue in F Major, bwv 885

Prelude and Fugue in C Major, bwv 870

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

From Miroirs (1904-1905)

Alborada del Gracioso

La Valee des cloches

Yes (Jon Anderson, Steve Howe, Patrick Moraz,

Chris Squire, and Alan White)

Sound Chaser (1974)

Transcribed for piano by Stephen Prutsman

Alexander Scriabin (1872-1915)

Prelude in B-flat Major, op. 11, no. 11 (1888-1896)

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

Three movements from Petrushka (1921)

Russian Dance

In Petrushka's Room

Shrovetide Fair

22

The Musician

Born in Los Angeles, Stephen Prutsman began playing the piano by ear

before moving on to more formal music studies. As a teenager he was

the composer and keyboard player for several art rock groups, including

Cerberus and Vysion, and the music arranger for a nationally syndicated

televangelist program. In the early 1990s he was a medal winner at the 

International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition and the Queen Elisabeth

International Music Competition of Belgium, which launched his classical

piano career in the United States and Europe. In 2004 he was appointed

artistic partner ofthe Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, acting as composer,

arranger, conductor, program host, and pianist. His compositions have been 

performed by Leon Fleisher, Prutsman’s mentor and former teacher; Yo-Yo

Ma; and Dawn Upshaw; as well as by the Kronos Quartet and the St. Lawrence String Quartet. Stephen Prutsman appears at the National Gallery by

arrangement with Mariedi Anders Artists Management and California

Artists Management, Inc., of San Francisco, California.

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Program Notes

Prutsman’s Tannery Pond was inspired by the idyllic pond in upstate New

York and describes a typical summer day there, from the predawn hours

to the evening. The Tannery Pond Concert Association commissioned the

work, originally realized as a concert piece for clarinet and piano (with Todd

Palmer on the clarinet and the composer on the piano), and arranged for 

its first performance.

Before Johann Sebastian Bach’s generation, composers thought of keys

with four or more sharps or flats as theoretically possible but did not write

music in them. However, with the advent of “tempered” tuning of keyboard

instruments, which allowed for composition in these previously unexplored

keys, Bach wrote one prelude and one fugue in each key for both volumes of

The Well-Tempered Clavier.

Maurice Ravel chose titles for his works and collections very carefully,

and Miroirs is no exception. The composer wanted the listener to understand

that what he or she is hearing is not program music but only a reflection

of the object or idea in the title. The distinctly Spanish Alborada del Gracioso

(The Jester’s Morning Serenade) incorporates the themes ofthe morning

serenade (alborada) and the character Gracioso (a jester in the comedies

of Lope de Vega [1562-1635] and Pedro Calderon de la Barca [1600-1681])

and the sounds offlamenco guitars and castanets. In La Valee des cloches

(Valley ofthe Bells), quiet harmonies and bell-like tones suggest a melancholy landscape and distant memories.

Written and recorded in the mid-1970s by the progressive art rock group

Yes, Sound Chaser is a virtuosic tone poem resplendent with quintessential

“Yes” elements: soaring melodies, frequent and innovative harmonic shifts,

metric interplay, and lyrics of hope and fantasy, which begin:

Faster moment spent spread tales of change within the sound

Counting form through rhythm electric freedom

Moves to counterbalance stars expound our conscience

All to know and see

The look in your eyes....

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Alexander Scriabin was sixteen when he began his Twenty-four Preludes,

op. 11, which were written between 1888 and 1896. His model was Johann

Sebastian Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, which contains twenty-four

preludes and fugues in each volume. Scriabin’s preludes are in no way

neobaroque; however, they do show the influence ofthe young composer’s

teacher, the great Russian romantic composer Anton Arensky (1861-1906).

Scriabin’s preference for wandering themes and dark harmonies was already

surfacing, and the pieces portend the radical changes that he would introduce after 1903.

In 1921, at the urging of pianist Arthur Rubinstein (and with the encouragement of an offer of 5,000 francs), Igor Stravinsky set about transcribing three movements ofhis already famous ballet Petrushka for solo piano. 

Rubinstein never recorded the piano version, although accounts ofhis many

live performances ofit testify to his close sympathy with the project. The result

of Stravinsky’s efforts is a full-blown, independent concert work in which the

electric, vaguely symmetrical sixteenth-note figurations and sharp orchestral

articulations ofthe Russian Dance are reforged into a demanding test offinger

dexterity. The famous oscillating contrary thirds ofstrings and woodwinds

that open Shrovetide Fair were probably originally conceived at the piano and 

are translated into a wholly idiomatic keyboard figuration that shimmers

in much the same way as its orchestral counterpart.

Program notes by Stephen Ackert, Sorab Modi, and Stephen Prutsman

25
2,626th Concert

June 6,2007

Ney Salgado, pianist

Program performed without intermission

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Rondo in D Major, K. 485 (1786)

Franz Schubert (1797-1828)

Sonata in A Minor, op. 143, D. 784 (1823)

Allegro giusto 

Andante

Allegro vivace

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)

Preludio; Introdugao

From Bachianas brasileiras no. 4

Valsa da dor

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Une Barque sur I’ocean

From Miroirs (1904-1905)

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)

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

Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

Mephisto-Walzer (1859)

26

The Musician

Considered one ofthe greatest living musicians of his country, Brazilian pianist Ney Salgado performed his first recital at age seven. He was a

student of Russian pianist Joseph Kliass’s in Sao Paulo and later studied

with Louis Hiltbrand at the Conservatoire de Musique de Geneve, where he 

received the prix de virtuosite. As a composition student of Hans-Joachim 

Koellreutter’s (1915-2005), Salgado developed a great interest in contemporary music and went on to perform the Brazilian premieres ofseveral

new works. He has toured extensively as a soloist in Canada, Latin America,

and the United States, and has given concerts in Berlin, Frankfurt, London,

Paris, Rome, and many other European cities. Salgado has performed at the

National Gallery five times since his first recital here in 1987. His performances have received critical acclaim, and after a tour of concerts in Poland,

he was awarded the Honor ofCultural Merit in Warsaw. He has also been 

honored in his own country and currently serv es as president ofthe Cultural 

Association Claudio Santoro.

Salgado has recorded for Radio Koln, Siidwestrundfunk, and many other

radio stations in Brazil, Europe, and the United States. His CD recordings

include works by Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, Santoro, Villa-Lobos, and 

other Latin American composers.
Program Notes

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart wrote three rondos for solo piano in his thirtieth

year (1786-1787): K. 485, K. 494, and K. 511. All three feature memorable

themes and Mozart’s typically skillful piano writing. The Rondo in D Major,

K. 485, contains a particularly chipper and graceful melody borrowed from

Johann Christian Bach (1735-1782). The work opens with a jaunty, playful 

theme skipping across the keyboard. After the second appearance ofthe

melody, it is gradually transformed, as greater weight and muscle are added

to its previously delicate frame. The melody periodically reappears in its

original form, making the rondo somewhat ambiguous but lighthearted.

Franz Schubert’s Sonata in A Minor was composed in 1823 but was not

published until 1839, eleven years after his death. The piece reflects his conviction, shared by the poets and artists who formed his circle offriends, that

music and poetry should be illustrative and narrative in nature and should

explore the full range offantasy and romantic imagination. Furthermore, in

the context ofthe return to reactionary absolute monarchy and strict censorship in Vienna in the 1820s, the potential for intimate, hidden communication was extremely important for artists. The poems Schubert chose to set

to music deal with intensely personal subjects and in some cases reflect the

painful circumstances of his love life, but they also have powerful hidden

messages about individual liberation and theology, subjects that could have 

gotten a composer into trouble. His music likewise narrates, discourses, and

ruminates, telling a personal story even as it fulfills the requirements of classical forms, which Schubert, like Beethoven, revered. Schubert’s sonatas, in

particular, succeed in working simultaneously at two levels, exposition and

allusion, presenting the finite and the infinite at the same time.

Responding to a state-sponsored initiative to upgrade national music

education in Brazil in the 1920s, Heitor Villa-Lobos began two major projects: 

the Guia Prdtico (Practical Guide), a music curriculum that used Brazilian 

materials; and Bachianas brasileiras, a composition dedicated to demonstrating

a link between Brazilian music and the themes ofJohann Sebastian Bach’s

28

music that eventually grew to nine movements, with versions for solo piano

and for various combinations ofinstruments, including full orchestra, in 1930

Villa-Lobos produced three solo piano pieces for the Bachianas, the first 

ofwhich is Preludio; Introdugao (Prelude: Introduction). He stressed the comparison of Bach and Brazil by giving each movement two titles in Portuguese,

one reflecting a Bachian form, the other suggesting the Brazilian nature of

the form. The prelude is a monothematic movement in B minor, strongly

reminiscent ofthe music ofthe eighteenth-century composer. Later rhythmic

developments add Brazilian flavor to the piece.

Maurice Ravel chose titles for his works and collections very carefully,

and Miroirs is no exception. The composer wanted the listener to understand

that what he or she is hearing is not program music but only a reflection of

the object or idea in the title. Une Barque sur I'ocean (A Boat on the Ocean) is

based on a highly evocative, one-measure motifthat poses a gentle eighthnote gesture in the right hand against rushing arpeggios in the left. In the

hands of a capable pianist, the texture calls to mind the gentle lapping of

waves against the side of a boat. This piece is both the longest and most

difficult ofthe Miroirs, as the arpeggios eventually take on more imposing

dimensions, and the right hand joins with the left in their execution.

Frederic Chopin wrote four Impromptus (pieces of an improvisatory

nature) but affixed the wordfantaisie only to the title ofthe last one, op. 66,

perhaps implying that it has a more rhapsodic nature than the others. Chopin asked that this work, along with several others, be destroyed after his

death. He gave no reason, but it is speculated that he felt the piece was too

derivative of Ignaz Moscheles’s (1794-1870) Impromptu, op. 89. Following 

a dour, imposing opening note, the piece begins with fast rippling figures in

both hands. A second section, moving to D-flat major, offers a broad, lyrical

melody (which was used about a century after Chopin’s death as the tune

ofthe popular song Pm Always Chasing Rainbows).

29
A late nineteenth-century writer commenting on Franz Liszt’s personality and behavior described him as “Mephisto disguised as an abbot,” referring

to his profligate behavior in his early years and his decision to take monastic

vov/s in middle age. Liszt wrote four Mephisto Waltzes, the most familiar of

which was completed in 1859. It is based on The Dance at the Village Inn, an

episode from Faust by Nikolaus Lenau (1802-1850). The waltz is noteworthy

not only for its dramatic impact, but also for its advanced chromatic idiom,

which had a decisive influence on Richard Wagner and other late romantic

composers.

Program notes by Stephen Ackert and Sorab Modi

3°