For the convenience of concertgoers 

the Garden Cafe 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 ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

Mailing address

2000b South Club Drive

Landover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

Alberto Giacometti, Walking Man II, i960, bronze,

National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Enid A. Haupt

The Sixty-seventh Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell

and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,687th Concert

Festival Strings Lucerne

Achim Fiedler, artistic director

Daniel Dodds, violin

Presented in connection with

“Spotlight Switzerland”

October 19, 2008

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847) 

Sinfoniafor Strings No. 9 in C Major (“Swiss”) (1823)

Grave-Allegro

Andante

Scherzo 

Allegro vivace

Pablo de Sarasate (1844-1908)

Concert Fantasyfor Violin and Orchestra, op. 25 (1883)

Based on the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet

Arranged for String Orchestra by Caspar Diethelm 

Introduction: Allegro moderato

Moderato

Lento assai

Allegro moderato

Moderato

INTERMISSION

Dieter Ammann (b. 1962)

„stellen“for 14 strings (2007-2008)

Washington Premiere Performance

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Quintetfor Strings no. 2 in G Major, op. 111 (1890)

Arranged for string orchestra by Achim Fiedler

Allegro non troppo, ma con brio

Adagio

Un poco allegretto

Vivace, ma non troppo presto

This concert is made possible in part by funds provided by the Swiss

Arts Council Pro Helvetia; the Ernst von Siemens Musikstiftung of

Munich, Germany; Nespresso; and the Embassy of Switzerland.
The Musicians

FESTIVAL STRINGS LUCERNE

Established in 1956 by Wolfgang Schneiderhan and Rudolf Baumgartner,

Festival Strings Lucerne is regarded as one ofthe world’s leading chamber

orchestras. The ensemble’s “golden sound” (Washington Post) is enhanced by

the enthusiasm ofthe players and the unique quality ofsome oftheir instruments. The orchestra regularly performs in the music centers of Europe and

has toured extensively in North America, South Africa, South America, and

Asia. Festival Strings Lucerne is a regular guest at the world’s most prominent

festivals, including those of Eisenstadt, Ludwigsburg, Prague, and Rheingau.

At home, the orchestra can be heard annually at the Lucerne Festival as well

as in its own concert series.

Festival Strings Lucerne strives for a creative dialogue between early and

new music. Its broad repertoire ranges from works for string ensemble to

those for full chamber orchestra and from baroque to contemporary music.

During its fifty-two-year history, the ensemble has premiered more than

100 works, by both established and newly emerging composers. Among

them, Beat Furrer, Milko Kelemen, Frank Martin, Bohuslav Martin,

Krzysztof Penderecki, Peter Ruzicka, Sandor Veress, Herbert Willi, and

Iannis Xenakis have responded to commissions from Festival Strings

Lucerne and its artistic directors.

The orchestra records for Sony Classical and Oehms Classics. The Sony

recording of Bach piano concertos with pianist Martin Stadtfeld received the

echo Klassik 2007 award for the best concert recording ofthe year. Festival

Strings Lucerne appears at the National Gallery by arrangement with

California Artists Management of San Francisco.

4

The members of Festival Strings Lucerne participating in this concert are

First Violin

Daniel Dodds (concertmaster)

Anne Schoenholtz

Thomas Schrott

Stefan Eperjesi

Veronika Hintermaier

Second Violin

Gianluca Febo

Droujelub Yanakiew

Manuel Oswald

Izabela Iwanowska

Viola

Markus Wieser

Dominik Fischer

Sylvia Zucker

Violoncello

Jonas Iten

Alexander Kionke 

Regula Maurer

Double Bass

Massimo Clavenna
ACHIM FIEDLER

Born in Stuttgart, Germany, Achim Fiedler studied violin and chamber

music at the Cologne Academy of Music. He continued his training at the

Guildhall School of Music in London and pursued independent studies with

Franco Gallini in Milan, Thomas Ungar in Stuttgart, and Seiji Ozawa at the

Tanglewood Music Center. Fiedler received the Herbert von Karajan grant in

1997, was an award winner in several international conducting competitions,

and served as assistant conductor under Carlo Maria Giulini and Bernard

Haitink. Fiedler guest-conducts the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Dresden Sachsische Staatskapelle, and the Radio Philharmonic of ndr Hanover

as well as the orchestras of Barcelona, the Grand Canary Islands, and Seville.

He has been a professor in conducting at the Lucerne Academy of Music 

since 2006 and the artistic director of Festival Strings Lucerne since 1998.

DANIEL DODDS

Born in 1971 in Adelaide, Australia, solo violinist Daniel Dodds studied in

Lucerne with Gunars Larsens and participated in master classes with Rudolf

Baumgartner, Franco Gulli, and Nathan Milstein. Named professor at the

Lucerne Music Academy in 1995, Dodds performs as soloist with the symphony orchestras of Brisbane, Lucerne, and Zagreb, among others, and has

been concertmaster ofthe Festival Strings Lucerne since 2000. He plays the

Stradivari “ex Rudolf Baumgartner” (1717), loaned by the Foundation Festival

Strings Lucerne.

6

Program Notes

This concert, along with the piano recital ofGilles Vonsattel that took place on

October 12, is the culmination of a series of events that began on October 8,

when a new film biography, Alberto Giacometti, Eyes on the Horizon, was

shown at the Gallery. The series continued with films by Swiss filmmakers

and directors Georges Gachot, Thomas Imbach, Peter Liechti, Christoph

Schaub, and Michael Schindhelm, about artists and performers who were

bom in Switzerland or made that country their home. These include architects Jacques Herzog and Pierre DeMeuron, who designed Beijing’s Olympic 

stadium; chamber musicians Hans Koch, Martin Schuetz, and Fredy Studer; 

conceptual artist Roman Signer; and concert pianist Martha Argerich. This

“Spotlight on Switzerland” at the National Gallery is poised between the

closing ofthe internationally renowned film and music festivals in Locarno,

Lucerne, Montreux, and Willisau, and the anticipated January 2009 opening

of a National Gallery exhibition ofworks by Swiss-born photographer Robert 

Frank: Looking In: Robert Frank's “The Americans.”

Felix Mendelssohn was a fourteen-year-old budding genius, excelling not

only in piano performance and composition but also in drawing, when he

wrote his ninth Sinfonia for string orchestra. It is brilliant in every respect,

and worthy of being called a chamber symphony. Mendelssohn opens the

work in Haydnesque fashion, with a ponderous introduction that leads into 

an animated first theme. The sinfonia quickly becomes something Haydn

could never have written, with much greater harmonic and rhythmic range

and technical sophistication, including a divided part for the violas and a

sudden shift to a highly effective fugal passage in the course ofthe first

movement. It leaps a generation beyond Haydn and is reminiscent ofthe

symphonies that another child prodigy, Mozart, was writing at the same age.

7
Pablo de Sarasate was among the many composers who were immediately

enthusiastic about Georges Bizet’s opera Carmen, which premiered in 1875.

Unlike some other fantasies on opera themes, Sarasate’s work preserves the 

opera’s dramatic dignity, even while giving the solo violinist plenty ofopportunities to show his or her technique. The introduction is an adaptation ofthe

Entr'acte at the beginning ofAct Four ofthe opera (the Aragonaise), and the

first movement incorporates the famous Habanera sung by Carmen in Act

One (L’amour est un oiseau rebelle). The second movement is a gentle foil for

the active music all around it, and the third movement reflects the shimmer

ofthe Seguidilla aria ofAct One. Sarasate links the third movement directly

to the fourth, which is based on the Bohemian Dance from Act Two. The

violinist’s athletic workout in this movement may remind the opera lover of

the frenetic dancing that some choreographers provide at this point in the

original stage version ofthe opera.

Dieter Ammann was born in Aarau, Switzerland, in 1962. He started

piano lessons at age five and later taught himselfto play the trumpet and the

guitar. He earned music diplomas at the Lucerne Academy of Music and

attended the Jazz School in Berne. From 1988-1992 he studied theory and

composition at the Basel Music Academy under Roland Moser and Detlev

Muller-Siemens, and attended courses taught by Niccolo Castiglioni, Witold

Lutoslawski, Wolfgang Rihm, and Dieter Schnebel. Ammann is professor of

musical analysis, composition, and improvisation at the Lucerne Academy 

of Music and the Berne Hochschule der Kiinste. His has earned top prizes

at the International Competition for Composers ofthe New York ibla Foundation; the Symposium nrw fur Neue Musik, Germany (first prize); Young

Composers in Europe Leipzig (first prize); and the Weimar Kulturstadt

Europas GmbH, in cooperation with the Academy of Music (the Franz Liszt

grant). Ammann spent 2003 in Berlin as composer-in-residence at the

Davos International Music Festival, and in 2008 he was awarded the prestigious Composer Award by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.

Ofhis „stellen“ for 14 strings, which was commissioned by the Ernst von

Siemens Music Foundation, the composer writes: “The German title ‘stellen’

is on one hand a verb that signifies the active placing ofinner subjective 

sound ideas into a valid form, thereby creating a genuine new piece ofwork,

and, on the other hand, a noun that points to musical places that greatly

contrast each other, generating the appearance oftension that continuously

transforms. Compositionally, these contrasts are created by using diverging

material. In this context, ‘stellen’ not only means a contrast-rich sound

creation (acoustic surface) but also the structurally changing character ofthe

material used. It is not the initially available material that generates musical

ideas but the inspirational energy—the acoustic vision—that defines what

is being utilized. Dramaturgically, the music compresses to a dense array 

of‘force fields that don’t diverge and remain strong even if[they move in]

conflicting directions. Music tolerates energies that flow in opposite directions

without disappearing into redundancies. No idle time—all lively and fresh!’

(Wolfgang Rihm).”

In 1890 Johannes Brahms sent his Quintetfor Strings no. 2 in G Major,

op. 111, to his publisher, Simrock, with the following note: “With this note you

can take leave ofmy music, because it is high time to stop. ” The following 

spring he wrote out his will, and for some time thereafter concentrated only

on unpublished works he had previously finished, composing nothing new.

It was not too long, however, before Brahms broke his own resolution. Already

in 1892, Simrock found six fantasies for piano from Brahms on his desk, 

which became opus 116, and there were several great works yet to follow.

Permeated with vivacity, the Quintet, op. 111, gives no hint of being

planned as a swan song. The opening ofthe first movement (Allegro non

tropp.o, ma con brio) derives from sketches Brahms had made in Italy for a

fifth symphony. Under a tremolo accompaniment from the other four

instruments, the cello is entrusted with an arpeggiated, leaping main theme.

Later in the movement, a three-note figure evokes the air of a Viennese

waltz. As is often the case with Brahms, the entrance ofthe recapitulation

is disguised through new instrumentation. At this point, the violin carries

9
the melody high above the tremolo accompaniment. Brahms’ favorite 

stringed instrument, the viola, introduces the theme ofthe ensuing Adagio,

cast in variation form in D minor. Wistful and transparent, the Adagio is

marked by unexpected shifts between major and minor and finally closes 

in D major. Fragments offirst-movement themes appear in the opening

melody ofthe minuet-like third movement (un poco allegretto), set in G minor.

Not unexpectedly, G major is the key ofthe trio; quite unexpectedly,

the major key is revisited during the coda ofthe movement. The fourth

movement (Vivace, ma non troppo presto) is peppered with the flavor of a

Hungarian csardas, especially its animated coda.

10

Next Week at the National Gallery of Art

Brazilian Guitar Quartet

Music by Albeniz, Bach, Mignone,

Miranda, and Villa-Lobos

October 22, 2008

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

East Building Auditorium

Vienna Piano Trio

Music by Haydn, Schubert, and Smetana

October 26, 2008

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court