75TH SEASON

OF CONCERTS

JANUARY 29, 2017 • NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
JANUARY 29

3:30 • West Building, West Garden Court

Cuarteto Latinoamericano

Saul Bitran, violin 

Aron Bitran, violin 

Javier Montiel, viola

Alvaro Bitran, cello

Dan Roman (b. 1974)

"Montuna Fever" from Sonora Complexidad

George Gershwin (1898-1937)

Lullaby for String Quartet (c. 1919)

Leo Brouwer (b. 1939)

Quartet no. 3 (1997)

Ritual Voice for New Year's Eve

Through the Body of the Wind

Impossible Dance

The Rhythm of the Night Changed

Intermission

Aaron Copland (1900-1990)

Two Pieces for String Quartet (1928)

Lento molto

Rondino

Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983)

String Quartet no. 2, op. 26 (1958)

Allegro rustico

Adagio angoscioso 

Presto magico

Libero e rapsodico

Furioso

75th Season • 3
The Musicians

Cuarteto Latinoamericano is one of the world's most renowned classical music ensembles 

and for more than thirty years, the leading proponent of Latin American music for string

quartet. Founded in Mexico in 1982, the Cuarteto has toured extensively throughout Europe,

North and South America, Israel, China, Japan, and New Zealand. The group has premiered

more than a hundred works written for them and continues to introduce new and neglected 

composers to the genre. The Cuarteto has won two Latin Grammy Awards for best classical

album, including their 2016 release El Hilo Invisible (The Invisible Thread), featuring ten 

Sephardic songs, performed with Mexican singer Jaramar Soto. The ensemble also received

the Mexican Music Critics Association Award and on three occasions the Most Adventurous

Programming Award from Chamber Music America/ASCAP.

Cuarteto members are the three Bitran brothers, violinists Saul and Aron and cellist

Alvaro, and violist Javier Montiel. The Cuarteto has performed and recorded a discography 

of over seventy recordings, including most of the Latin American repertoire for string quartet.

Volume 6 of their complete Villa-Lobos cycle of seventeen quartets for Dorian received

2002 nominations for both a Grammy Award and a Latin Grammy for Best Chamber Music

Recording. Cuarteto won the 2012 Latin Grammy for Best Classical Recording for their CD

Brasileiro: Works of Migone. The group's recording with Manuel Barrueco, Inca Dances, by

Gabriela Lena Frank, won the 2009 Latin Grammy for Best New Latin Composition.

The Cuarteto has performed as soloist with important orchestras, including the Los

Angeles Philharmonic, the Seattle Symphony, the Dallas Symphony, Ottawa's National Arts

Center Orchestra, Orquesta Filarmonica de la Ciudad de Mexico, and the Simon Bolivar 

Orchestra of Venezuela. They debuted with the Miami Symphony in April 2016 with the

premiere of a new work by Orlando Garcia. On tour the Cuarteto plays in the world's most

distinguished halls and festivals, including the Concertgebouw, La Scala, the Esterhazy

Palace, the Kennedy Center, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and the Ojai Festival.

The Cuarteto has collaborated with many celebrated artists over the years, including

cellists Janos Starker and Yehuda Hanani, pianists Itamar Golan, Cyprien Katsaris, and

Rudolph Buchbinder, tenor Ramon Vargas, clarinetist Paul Meyer, and guitarists Narciso Yepes,

Sharon Isbin, David Tanenbaum, and Manuel Barrueco, with whom they have performed

extensively in some of the most important venues of the United States and Europe.

4 • National Gallery of Art

Program Notes

Dan Roman has developed a compositional style integrating elements of the folkloric

music from the Caribbean, in particular that of his native Puerto Rico, with the mechanics 

of minimalism and the aesthetics of postmodern art. His music has been performed in

Puerto Rico, South America, Spain, France, Austria, Italy, and throughout the United States.

He has received commissions to write new pieces for the Alturas Duo, the New World Trio,

The Irrelevants, the Connecticut Children's Choir, and the "Hartford Commissions" project.

At Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, Roman teaches music of the twentieth century

and post-colonial Latin America, and music technology. The composer writes: "The title of 

this piece is split in two terms: 'Sonora' meaning aural but also referring to the names of 

two famous Afro-Caribbean musical ensembles, Sonora Matancera from Cuba, and Sonora

Poncena from Puerto Rico. 'Complexidad' is a lingual morphing between Spanish and

English and refers to the inherent metric, harmonic, and structural complexity of the piece.

This first movement, 'Montuno Fever,' relies on the recognizable pattern of the montuno

accompaniment used in the music of the Afro-Caribbean, while a twelve-tone row makes a

few appearances, riding the rhythm of the 'montuno' in multiple and diverse ways.”

The Lullaby for String Quartet was written in 1919 while George Gershwin was still

a student, although he had already had several successes. His first musical, La La Lucille,

was produced on Broadway that same year. Contrary to the "Hollywoodized” image of 

him, Gershwin was devoted to studying music throughout his short life. He was constantly

seeking to expand his knowledge and refine his technique. He used the opening theme

of the Lullaby as part of an aria ("Has Anyone Seen My Joe?") in his unsuccessful one-act

opera of 1922, Blue Monday. Despite its failure, the music prompted Paul Whiteman to

commission a work for his upcoming Aeolian Hall concert. This work became Rhapsody

in Blue. Gershwin's Lullaby manuscript sat on his shelf for years until he showed it to

harmonica virtuoso Larry Adler, who transcribed it for harmonica and string quartet and

later presented it at the Edinburgh Festival in 1963. It was then transcribed for harmonica

and orchestra. The work was not premiered in its original form until October 28,1967. It is

often heard in a version for string orchestra.

Leo Brouwer is a Cuban composer, conductor, and guitarist, grandson of Cuban

composer Ernestina Lecuona y Casado and great-nephew of composer Ernesto Lecuona.

In his music, Brouwer employs a variety of languages in a seamless and coherent blend 

of Cuban traditional music with the most avant-garde musical trends. Very prevalent

are the complex rhythmic patterns of Afro-Cuban music. His Quartet no. 3 relates to his

earlier 1983 trio for violin, cello, and piano and to the 1984 Canciones Remotas for chamber

orchestra, even sharing some of the same movement titles. The first movement, Ritual

Voice for New Year's Eve, opens with a lyrical introduction in which Brouwer presents the

main thematic motif — an augmented fifth followed by three major seconds. Later on in

the movement, these five notes become the rhythmic unit underlying several dance-like

sections. The second movement, Through the Body of the Wind, outlines the ideas previously suggested but through a more melodic treatment, interrupted by brief, cadenza-like

outbursts of the first violin. The third movement's title, Impossible Dance, alludes to the

75th Season • 5
complex and intricate rhythms of the opening and closing sections (the movement is on an

A-B-A form). The middle section contains two separate lines, one on the viola and cello 

playing fast, syncopated, drum-like rhythms, and the other, where the two violins play a

plaintive African-inspired song, on a simpler 4/4 meter. The fourth movement, The Rhythm 

of the Night Changed, also on an A-B-A form, is a veritable perptetuum mobile, where the 

viola maintains fast eight notes and the other three instruments intersperse syncopated

and accentuated short motives. The middle section, a bit slower, is written as a chain of 

individual syncopations, where each instrument completes another's intervention in order

to create a single, chained line. After this trio-like section, there is a condensed da capo.

Quartet no. 3 premiered in 1998 in Cordoba by the Cuarteto de Cuerdas de La Habana, to

whom it is dedicated.

Aaron Copland's Two Pieces for String Quartet consists of Lento molto and Rondino,

composed in 1928 and 1923, respectively. Rondino was originally the second movement

of Hommage a Faure, and contains a theme spelling out "Gabriel Faure'' in solfege syllables.

Rondino is Copland's first completed work for string quartet. The other movement, later

withdrawn, was an arrangement for string quartet of Prelude IX from Faure’s Preludes

pour piano, op. 103. Lento Molto was not originally intended as a companion piece

to Rondino, but was too brief to stand on its own. Copland paired the two movements,

and Two Pieces for String Quartet was first performed on May 6,1928, in New York at 

the second of the Copland-Sessions concerts. In summer 1928, Copland was in residence

at the MacDowell Colony and transcribed the two movements for string orchestra.

The resulting work was premiered in December of that year by the Boston Symphony

Orchestra under Serge Koussevitzky.

Alberto Ginastera was born in Buenos Aires and began his musical education at an

early age. He gained national recognition before completing his musical studies after the 

Teatro Colon performance of an Orchestral Suite from his Ballet Panambff1937). He gained

international acclaim with the performance of his Second String Quartet by the Juilliard

Quartet in Washington, DC, in 1958. His String Quartet no. 2, op. 26 (1957), marks the beginning of Ginastera's neo-expressionist period. He makes use of polytonality— common in his

earlier compositions —and micro-intervals. The fast outer movements (Allegro rustico and

Furioso), alike in their vitality and energy, suggest a brilliant and animated malambo. The slow 

movements (second and fourth) are contemplative and introspective, conveying Ginastera's

feelings for the solitude and mystery of the endless pampas through the use of desolate,

abruptly broken melodies and free recitatives. The fourth movement (Libero e rapsodico) 

is written as a theme with variations in the form of cadenzas in which each player has solo

opportunities. The rhapsodic intensity of this movement contrasts with the deep sadness

and anguish of the second (Adagio angoscioso). The tempo indication for the third movement (Presto magico) conjures visions of the supernatural and fantastic and makes the most

obvious use of modern techniques such as sul ponticello, col legno, and harmonics to create a

brilliant array of sounds and aleatoric effects.

Program notes by the Cuarteto Latinoamericano

6 • National Gallery of Art

Upcoming Events of the SeventyFifth Season of The William

Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot

Belin Concerts

Marcolivia, violin and viola duo 

"Washingtonians on Wednesdays"

From Bartok to Bebop

February 1,12:10

West Building Lecture Hall

The Chamber Ensemble of the American

Youth Philharmonic Orchestras

Music by Samuel Barber and Ned Rorem

February 4, 2:00

West Building, East Garden Court

Mendelssohn Piano Trio

Complete Piano Trios of Schubert

February 5,12:00 and 3:00

West Building, East Garden Court

Edvinas Minkstimas, piano 

"Washingtonians on Wednesdays"

February 8,12:10

West Building, East Garden Court

Eya

Florence: The Cultural Crucible

Presented in honor of Della Robbia:

Sculpting with Color in Renaissance Florence

February 11,12:00 and 2:00

West Building, West Garden Court

Blue Heron

Music of DuFay for Florence and the Medici

Presented in honor of Della Robbia:

Sculpting with Color in Renaissance Florence

February 12,12:00 and 2:00

West Building, West Garden Court

General Information

Admission to the National Gallery of Art

and all of its programs is free of charge,

except as noted.

The use of cameras or recording equipment

during the performance is not allowed.

Please be sure that all portable electronic

devices are turned off.

Concerts are made possible in part

through the generosity of donors to the

National Gallery of Art through The Circle. 

Reserved seating is available in recognition

of their support. Please contact the

development office at (202) 842-6450 or

circle@nga.gov for more information.

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The department of music produced these

program notes. Copyright © 2017 Board of

Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Cover Prentiss Taylor, Feldman Quartet

Rehearsing, National Gallery (detail), 1967,

Corcoran Collection (Gift of Roderick S. Quiroz

in Honor of John Zeigler and Father Joseph

Haller, S.J.)

Back cover West Building, Constitution

Avenue entrance, viewed from Sixth Street nw,

1941, National Gallery of Art, Washington,

Gallery Archives