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 ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

www.nga.gov

The Sixty-ninth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,803rd Concert

Faure Piano Quartett

Dirk Mommertz, piano

Erika Geldsetzer, violin

Sascha Frombling, viola

Konstantin Heidrich, cello

October 27, 2010

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Admissionfree
Program

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

Piano Quartet in A Minor (1876)

Volker David Kirchner (b. 1942)

Echo und Narziss—Poemefur Violine, Viola, Violoncello,

and Klavier (2005)

Gabriel Faure (1845-1924)

Piano Quartet no. 1 in C Minor, op. 15 (1883)

Allegro molto moderato

Scherzo; Allegro vivace

Adagio

Allegro molto

The Musicians

Formed in 1995, the Faure Piano Quartett is the only German chamber

ensemble ofits type. The group is named after Gabriel Faure, whose two

piano quartets are numbered among his most masterful compositions.

The ensemble has won top prizes and awards at international chamber

music competitions, including the Deutsche Schallplattenpreis and the

Parkhouse Award in Great Britain. It has performed on the most important

international stages, including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Berlin’s

Philharmonie, Hamburg’s Laiszhalle and Musikhalle, London’s Wigmore 

Hall, and Rio de Janeiro’s Sala Cecilia Meireles and Teatro Colon. The 

Quartett is also a regular guest at renowned festivals such as the Festival de

Radio France at Montpellier, Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the 

Ludwigsburger Festspiele, Kissinger Sommer, the Kuhmo Chamber Music

Festival, the Martha Argerich Festival Buenos Aires, the Rheingau Musikfest,

and the Schleswig-Holstein Musikfest, among others.

In 2006 the group recorded the two Mozart piano quartets for Deutsche 

Gramophone in honor ofthe 250th anniversary ofthe composer’s birth.

Two years later, they followed with a CD ofthe music of Brahms. Additional

cd recordings were produced by ars musici, covering the piano quartets of

Antonin Dvorak, Gabriel Faure, Theodor Kirchner, and Josef Suk.

The Faure Piano Quartett is currently the quartet-in-residence at the 

Karlsruhe Music Lyceum, the first piano quartet to have received this honor. 

Following the example oftheir influential mentor ensemble, the Alban

Berg Quartet, the members ofthe Faure Piano Quartett convene regular

chamber music seminars. The ensemble appears at the National Gallery by

arrangement with Marianne Schmocker Artists of Huntington, New York.

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Program Notes

Composed while Mahler was a student at the Vienna Conservatory, the 

single-movement Piano Quartet in A Minor is one of a number of chamber

works the composer wrote between 1875 and 1883. During his years at

the conservatory as a student ofRobert Fuchs, Mahler won two prizes for

movements for piano quintet. This manuscript is the only one ofthose

pieces to have survived, as he destroyed all others. It remained unpublished

until the late 1970s.

The movement is in sonata form, based on three contrasting themes. It

bears a resemblance to the music of Schumann and Brahms—not surprising for a sixteen-year-old composer writing in 1876. An unusual feature is

that the first two themes, normally in contrasting keys in sonata form, both 

appear in A minor. Mahler compensates for this lack oftonal contrast with 

his handling ofthe third theme, which goes through many modulations.

The most original feature ofthe movement is a violin cadenza just before

the coda, a device that is normally found only in concertos.

Volker David Kirchner’s Echo und Narziss—Poemejur Violine, Viola,

Violoncello, und Klavier (Echo and Narcissus— Poem for violin, viola, violoncello, and piano) was written for and is dedicated to the Faure Piano Quartett. Through a simple and direct approach to composition, Kirchner makes 

possible the musical representation of psychological states. The listener is

drawn by an undertow of varying colors and frequent shifts between tonality

and atonality into the intimate atmosphere ofmodern music—the world of

a present-day romantic.

In the Greek myth that lies behind the piece, the nymph Echo is punished by the goddess Hera, who is angry because Echo’s gossip prevented

Hera from detecting an amorous affair on the part of her husband, Zeus.

Form that point on, Hera decrees that Echo may never initiate a conversation, but must only repeat what others have said. Meanwhile, Echo falls in

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love with the demigod Narcissus. She is unable to communicate her love to

him, and he rejects her, leaving her to fade away to nothing but sound and 

bones. When the arrogant Narcissus causes yet another suitor to commit

suicide, he is cursed by Artemis, goddess ofthe hunt. As a result, he falls in 

love with his own reflection, and is doomed to a future ofunrequited love

and loneliness.

The relatively short piano quartet—its brevity implied by the word “poem”

in the title—has two sections. In the first section (“Echo”), the motifs unfold 

as small collections oftones are repeated with slight variations. The rhythm 

here is a gently swaying 6/8. The second section (“Narcissus”) follows the

first immediately. Here the motifs appear closely juxtaposed, like fragments 

from a much-too-slow Mahler symphony. The flow ofthe music seems to

suffer from fatigue and depression. Kirchner’s music expresses the deepest 

human feelings that the two mythical figures would have had at the end of

their fate—disorientation, loneliness, and longing.

Gabriel Faure, probably best known for his prolific output ofmelodies 

and chansons, was also a champion of chamber music. Among his contributions to the genre are numerous works for piano and solo instrument,

including sonatas and many smaller pieces; a piano trio; two piano quartets; 

two piano quintets; and one string quartet, composed in 1924, which was

his final chamber work. He owed much of his opportunity to compose 

multiple chamber works to his mentor, Camille Saint-Saens, who founded

the Societe Nationale de Musique, a concert organization dedicated to

performing new works by young French composers. It was at one ofthese 

concerts that Faure’s First Piano Quartet was premiered in 1880, with the 

composer at the piano. Responding to criticism from some of his colleagues,

Faure later revised the finale, and the work was published in 1883.

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From the outset, the quartet exhibits a number oftraits that distinguish

Faure’s music—his shapely handling ofsonata form, an ongoing dialogue 

among deftly worked melodies, and adept writing for piano. Like much

of Faure’s output, the writing is urbane, but in the first movement there is

also a predominance ofhigh spirits. Romanticism and its doleful heroics 

are left behind, as are the frivolous, the formulaic, and the balletic. The 

second movement (Scherzo) surprises with a blithe, pizzicato perpetuum

mobile. The Adagio demonstrates that profound passion is not incompatible

with balance and classical purity ofline. Finally, the soaring Allegro molto

caps the work with a shimmer of gaiety that gracefully shifts between the 

major and minor modes.

Notes on Kirchner by Konstantin Heidrich

Notes on Mahler and Faure by Stephen Ackert, head, music department,

National Gallery ofArt

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Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

National Gallery ofArt Orchestra

Gillian Anderson, guest conductor

Music by Gluck, Haydn, Schubert, and other composers

October 31, 2010

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

East Building Auditorium

New York Chamber Soloists

Music by Delius, Sullivan, and Vaughan Williams

Presented in honor of The Pre-Raphaelite Lens:

British Photography and Painting, 1848-1875

November 3, 2010

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall