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Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

wuw.ngn.gov

Concerts are made possible in part through the generosity of donors

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 cirde@nga.gov for more information.

The Seventy-first Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,931st Concert

Michiko Otaki, pianist

Roger Chase, violist

Presented in honor ofthe

2013 National Cherry Blossom Festival

March 24, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Benjamin Dale (1885-1943)

Romancefor Viola and Piano (1906)

From Suitefor Viola and Piano, op. 2

Yoshimitsu Kurokami (1933-2002)

Wild Flowers (1965)

Hajime Okumura (1925-1991)

Preludes to Three Flowers (1971)

Anemone

Hyacinth

Tulip

Kunihiko Hashimoto (1904-1949)

Pluie dans la rue (1934)

Frederick Delius (1862-1934)

Sonata no. yfor Violin and Piano (1930)

Arranged for viola and piano by Lionel Tertis 

Slow

Andante scherzando

Lento; con moto

INTERMISSION

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Sonata in E-flat Major, op. 120, no. 2 (1894)

Allegro amabile

Allegro appassionato

Andante con moto

York Bowen (1884-1961)

Phantasyfor Viola and Piano, op. 54 (1918)
The Musicians

MICHIKO OTAKI

A noted chamber musician, pianist Michiko Otaki has performed and recorded

with renowned international ensembles including the Graffe String, Jose White,

Kodaly, and Martinu quartets, and Swiss Wind Quintet. With the Graffe Quartet

she has recorded Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet and works by Bohuslav

Martinu (1890-1959) and Vitezslav Novak (1870-1949). In addition to numerous recordings with violist Roger Chase, Otaki has recorded and toured with

the Bohemian Chamber Philharmonic, Brno Chamber Orchestra, Brno Chamber Soloists, Pilsen Philharmonic, Slovak Sinfonietta, and Warsaw Wind

Quintet. Her concerto recordings include works by Beethoven, Mozart, and

Schumann, and her first solo recording of Dmitry Kabalevsky’s (1904-1987)

seldom-played Preludes and Fugues is available from iTunes and other major

digital outlets.

Otaki’s multi-year association with the Warsaw Wind Quintet included

numerous extensive tours ofthe United States and Europe, broadcasts on

American Public Media’s Performance Today, and two critically acclaimed CD

recordings, one ofwhich received the Polish Grammy Award as Best Chamber Music Recording.

Born in Japan, Michiko Otaki studied at the San Francisco Conservatory

and the Manhattan School of Music, and received her doctorate in performance from the University of Miami. She is director ofkeyboard studies at

Clayton State University in Atlanta, where she performs often at Spivey Hall.

In addition to a previous concert at the National Gallery, she has played at the

Cleveland Museum ofArt, the Chamber Music Hall ofthe Warsaw Philharmonic, and Weill Recital Hall in New York City. She has been a featured performer at big Arts, Festival Miami, and the chamber music festival ofPrinceton

University as well as with the Chicago Chamber Music Society, Da Camera

Society of Los Angeles, and Harvard Musical Association .

4

ROGER CHASE

Born in London, Roger Chase studied at the Royal College of Music with

Bernard Shore and in Canada with Steven Staryk, also working for a short

time with the legendary Lionel Tertis, whose Montagnana viola he now plays.

He performed with the English Chamber Orchestra, appearing as soloist

at the Proms at Royal Albert Hall, and played in major cities throughout

Australia, Canada, Europe, India, Japan, the Middle East, and New Zealand

as well as in the United Kingdom and the United States. His festival appearances include the Schiermonnikoog (Holland), Consonances (France), 

Casalmaggiore (Italy), and Bowdoin (Maine) international music festivals.

A member ofthe Nash Ensemble for more than twenty years, Chase also

performed with the Esterhazy Baryton Trio, Hausmusik of London, London 

Chamber Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, and Quartet of London. His critically

acclaimed recordings for Dutton with pianist Michiko Otaki include music by

nineteenth- and twentieth-century British composers Stanley Bate, Arnold Bax,

W. H. Bell, Arthur Bliss, Benjamin Dale, Richard Harvey, Theodore Holland,

Edmund Rubbra, and Ralph Vaughan Williams, as well as violin sonatas of

Frederick Delius and John Ireland (1879-1962), transcribed by Tertis.

Roger Chase taught at the Guildhall School, Oberlin College, and

Roosevelt University as well as the Royal College of Music and Royal Northern College of Music. He and Michiko Otaki appear at the National Gallery

by arrangement with Raymond Weiss Management, RWAM.cnc.net.

5
Program Notes

The legendary English musician Lionel Tertis (1876-1975) is recognized as one 

ofthe greatest violists of all time. In his autobiography, My Viola and I, Tertis

wrote: “It was pure generosity in those days—at the beginning ofthe [twentieth] century—to write for the solo viola.... However, my composer friends

continued to write a number ofworks for me.” Benjamin Dale and York Bowen,

whose music opens and closes tonight’s program, were the first to make contributions to the new solo literature. Their unique musical languages shared some

common traits, such as colorful and complex chromaticism, unusual (but perfectly logical) modulations, and uncommonly long but singable melodic lines.

Benjamin Dale came from a musical family, and his father, C. J. Dale,

was the principal ofthe North Metropolitan College of Music, the first school

Bowen attended. Like Bowen, Dale studied composition with Frederick Corder

(1862-1932) at London’s Royal Academy and won many prizes for his compositions. In 1909 he was appointed professor of harmony at the academy, and

later professor of composition and warden ofthe academy. He composed

very little after that, presumably because the administrative work took most

of his attention and time. The Romance is the second movement of Dale’s

Suitefor Viola and Piano, composed in 1906. Lionel Tertis considered Dale’s

Romance to be one ofthe most beautiful pieces ofmusic ever written, and

always had the score open on his music stand.

In honor ofthe 2013 National Cherry Blossom Festival, Michiko Otaki 

offers two pieces inspired by flowers and one inspired by rain, reflecting the

major role that these elements have played in the artistic and literary traditions ofJapan. Born in Tokyo in 1933, Yoshimitsu Kurokami studied at the

Kunitachi Music College with Saburo Takada and Yuzuru Shimaoka. His

best-known compositions are Nogiku-no-haka for mixed choir and an opera

entitled Ikutagawa. His opera Nogiku-no-shi won a Theatrical Arts Award from

Japan’s cultural ministry. He was the vice-president of Shin-Naminokai—a

group advocating the preservation ofthe authentic Japanese language and

the propagation ofbeautiful Japanese art songs—and a member ofthe Japan

6

Modern Music Society. Composed in 1965, Wild Flowers is a set ofthree

variations based on a pentatonic melody, which is marked “Whole-heartedly,

with sincerity.” Rather than the progressively accelerating tempi typically seen

in the theme and variation form, Kurokami alternates slower and faster tempi.

Born in Tokyo in 1925, Hajime Okumura first aspired to become a professional pianist, but later focused on composition, studying at the Tokyo Music

School. He joined a military school in 1944, where he completed intensive

studies in arranging and orchestration, and played oboe and bassoon in the

band. After World War 11, he was active as an accompanist to the finest opera

singers in Japan, which inspired him to compose his own operas. His bestknown works are for piano solo, wind ensemble, and wind ensemble with

piano. In his set ofthree miniature pieces, Preludes to Three Flowers, Okumura

explores various piano tonal colors using sophisticated chromaticism and

the unconventional use of parallel motion.

Born in Tokyo 1904, Kunihiko Hashimoto moved with his family to Osaka 

while he was still very young. There, he studied with Kichinosulce Tsuji, one

ofthe finest violinists in Japan, but his interest soon turned to composition.

Because at the time there was no composition teacher at the Tokyo Music 

School he attended, he majored in violin performance and conducting, and

taught himself composition.

During the years he spent in Europe and the United States (1934-1937), 

Hashimoto developed strong interests in atonalism, musical nationalism,

and impressionism. He became acquainted with Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936),

Ernst Krenek (1900-1991), and Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951), and studied

intensively in Vienna with Egon Wellesz (1885-1974), a Schoenberg pupil.

Hashimoto wrote both popular and classical music for the concert stage, commercials, films, recordings, and broadcasts. Moved by the political fervor in

Japan during World War 11, he composed patriotic songs that reinforced the

propaganda ofthe time. After the war, he took responsibility for his wartime

music activities by resigning from his post at the Tokyo Music School. He 

suffered both mentally and physically for the remainder ofhis life, and

died of cancer in Kamakura in 1949. Making liberal use of pentatonic scales,

7
Hashimoto’s Pluie dans la rue is clearly inspired by the first and last of

Claude Debussy’s Estampes (Pagodes and Jardins sous la pluie). The pentatonic

scales come full circle, so to speak, having entered Debussy's musical vocabulary thanks to his exposure to Far Eastern music.

Frederick Delius was already an established composer living abroad by

the time Lionel Tertis started his campaign for new viola compositions. Delius’

Violin Sonata no. 3 was composed after his advancing illness had left him

blind and wheelchair-bound, and was completed with the help of his amanuensis, Eric Fenby (1906-1997). In his memoirs, Fenby describes Tertis’ visit 

to Delius’ house in Grez-sur-Loing on a very cold winter day in 1933. During

that visit, Tertis played his viola arrangement ofthe sonata for Delius, recalling: “Rarely had I seen Delius so happy.”

In his transcriptions ofthe sonatas, op. 120, originally written for the

clarinet, Johannes Brahms took full advantage ofthe viola’s special characteristics by adding double stops at decisive moments, elongating phrases,

adjusting broken-chord figures for idiomatic string playing, changing articulations to those that suit the viola better, and altering registers. Brahms’

letter to his friend violinist Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), written soon after

his transcription ofthese two sonatas, is often quoted as proof ofBrahms’

own disapproval of his viola arrangement: “I fear that, as viola sonatas, both

pieces are very awkward and unenjoyable.” Brahms’ apprehension has been

proven unwarranted by subsequent generations ofperformers, who render

the alterations made in the viola parts so effectively that one could imagine

that Brahms had the viola in mind from the very inception ofthese sonatas.

Tertis created his own viola version of Brahms’ op. 120 sonatas, in which

he preserved most ofBrahms’ register changes for the viola. Where he reverted 

to the original clarinet register, Tertis appears to have done so either to restore

the original melodic line, or to allow a convincing demonstration of his own

extended upper register technique. Tertis also added some double stops and

eliminated others, and made significant changes in phrasing. Roger Chase’s

version, heard in tonight’s concert, is based on the Tertis version, with his

own personal alterations.

York Bowen was one ofthe finest pianists Britain ever produced. At the

Royal Academy, he studied piano with the world-renowned pedagogue Tobias

Matthay (1858-1945) and composition with Frederick Corder. Bowen won no

fewer than seven prizes as a pianist and composer while at the academy and

was appointed professor in 1909. A frequent recital partner of Lionel Tertis,

he considered the viola to be far superior in tone to the violin. Among the

many works Bowen wrote for Tertis are a viola concerto and two viola sonatas

and the Phantasyfor Viola and Piano that concludes tonight’s concert. Written

in one continuous movement with several sections, the Phantasy begins

with a tender viola monologue and proceeds through a light and playful Poco

piu allegro, a majestic Poco piu lento, a warm and intimate Poco adagio, and an

energetic Allegro vivo to the grand finale. The work is imbued with an exquisite sense of harmonic color, lyrical melodies, and masterful structure.

Progi'am notes based on materials provided by Roger Chase and Michiko Otaki

9
Upcoming Concerts at the National Gallery ofArt

Edvinas Minkstimas, pianist 

with National Gallery ofArt and

Phillips Camerata resident musicians

Music by Beethoven

and other composers

March 27, 2013

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

East Building Auditorium

Ars Vocalis

Music by Puerto Rican

and other Hispanic composers

March 31, 2013

Sunday, 4:00 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Crowden School Ensemble

Music by Bach, Dvorak,

and other composers

April 3, 2013

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Winners ofthe

2013 Feder Memorial String Competition

Presented in collaboration with the

Washington Performing Arts Society

April 6, 2013

Saturday, 3:30 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Danielle DeSwert Hahn, pianist

with National Gallery ofArt and 

Phillips Camerata resident musicians

Music by Beethoven

and other composers

April 7, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court