Fifty-ninth Concert Season at the National Gallery ofArt

2000-2001

Under the Direction of George Manos

Sundays at 7:00 p.m. in the West Building, West Garden Court

PERFORMERS

January

28 Penderecki String Quartet

February

4 Juliana Osinchuk, pianist

11 Razumovsky String Quartet

18 Leila Josefowicz, violinist

John Novacek, pianist

25 The Chamber Music Society

of Lincoln Center 

David Shifrin, artistic director

PROGRAMS

Mozart: Quartet, K. 387

Xenakis: Tetras

Brahms: Quartet, Op. 51/2

Clementi: Sonata, Op. 47/2

Philip Munger: Fragile Vessel

Faure: Impromptus

Poulenc: Impromptu

Saint-Saens: Allegro

appassionato

Shostakovich: Quartet in F

Major, Op. 73 (1946)

Tchaikovsky: Quartet in D

Major, Op. 11

Falla: Suite populaire espagnole

Shostakovich: Sonata, Op. 134

Gershwin: Porgy and Bess Suite

Novacek: Four Rags

Vieuxtemps: Souvenir

d'Amerique

Rorem: Autumn Music

Chausson: Concertofor Violin,

Strings, and Piano in D Major

Mendelssohn: String Quartet

No. 2, Op. 87

The Fifty-ninth Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2369th Concert

CECILE LICAD, pianist

Sunday Evening, 21 January 2001

Seven O'clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
PROGRAM

Music ofFrederic Chopin (1810-1849)

Three Mazurkas, Op. 56 (1843)

No. 1 in B Major 

No. 2 in C Major 

No. 3 in C Minor

Three Waltzes, Op. 64 (1846-1847)

No. 1 in D-flat Major (“Minute”)

No. 2 in C-sharp Minor 

No. 3 in A-flat Major

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

Berceuse in D-flat Major, Op. 57 (1843-1844)

Ballade in G Minor, Op. 23 (1831-1835)

INTERMISSION

Twelve Etudes, Op. 25 (1832-1836)

No. 1 in A-flat Major 

No. 2 in F Minor 

No. 3 in F Major 

No. 4 in A Minor 

No. 5 in E Minor 

No. 6 in G-sharp Minor

No. 7 in C-sharp Minor 

No. 8 in D-flat Major 

No. 9 in G-flat Major 

No. 10 in B Minor 

No. 11 in A Minor 

No. 12 in C Minor

Cecile Licad began piano studies at age three with her mother in her 

native Philippines and continued with the highly respected Philippine

teacher, Rosario Picazo. Her natural talent was further honed at the

Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia by three of the greatest 

performer-pedagogues of the twentieth century: Rudolph Serkin,

Seymour Lipkin, and Mieczyslaw Munz. As one of the youngest 

musicians to receive the prestigious Leventritt Gold Medal in 1981,

Licad won immediate international recognition. A debut performance in

Luxembourg, followed by recitals in Paris, New York, and other 

American cities, featured a series of all-Chopin programs. After residing 

in Europe for many years, she returned to America and now lives 

with her young son in New York City.

A typical critical reaction to Cecile Licad’s performance was expressed 

in the Chicago Sun-Times: “She appears to have total command of the

instrument, but with the kind of dedication that always puts technique at

the service of music. The sound is powerful, richly colored, and, even in

the quietest passages, it projects like a searchlight....The nicest thing

about a concert like this is the expectation, the thought of all the

marvelous things this artist is going to [bring to] you in the future.” Cecile

Licad appears at the National Gallery by arrangement with Columbia 

Artists Management, Incorporated, of New York City.

Chopin’s travels in 1830 were intended to include a recital tour of

Russia. Upon hearing of Russia’s siege of Poland, however, Chopin 

adamantly refused to perform there. Deeply resenting the siege and in

great sorrow over the loss of family, friends, and his beloved homeland,

Chopin showered his compositions with heartfelt emotion. He left 

Poland at the age of twenty, never to return, and died in Paris at the age

of thirty-nine. The most compelling examples of his nationalist works

are his mazurkas and polonaises, in which the harmonies visit a bold new

world of sounds. These harmonies were unimaginable before Chopin’s

time and left his listeners astonished and mystified.
Chopin preferred the smaller musical forms (waltzes, etudes, nocturnes,

and preludes) as his medium of expression, and within that cosmos he

created “a legion of masterpieces against which pales the magnificence 

of many a symphony” (Tadeusz Andrzej Zielinsky, Polish musicologist 

and author). The English Chopin scholar Arthur Hedley (1905-1969)

wrote: “He [Chopin] does not rank highest in the hierarchy of

musicians—nobody would claim that—yet he enjoys what only few

have: he is one and high above any level, raised in his own closed 

domain.” Cecile Ficad’s program samples the genius of Chopin as an

innovator and originator whose music is as revelatory to its listeners 

today as it was a century ago. The late author and past president of the

Greater New York Council of the Chopin Foundation, Jan Gorbaty 

(1915-1999), wrote: “Ageless and filled with romantic longing,

Chopin’s music will no doubt always strike a profound chord within the

‘secret chambers of the soul....’ His music is universal. In everyone’s

soul there must be a sensitive string that, if touched, will vibrate.”

Upon hearing the word mazurka, one immediately thinks of Chopin, as

did Schumann when he wrote about the subject in his newspaper, the

Neue Zeitschriftfur Musik: “Chopin has elevated the mazurka to a small

art form. He has written many, yet few among them resemble each other.

Almost every one contains some poetic trait, something new in form and

expression.” Schumann could have cited a perfect example in the three

mazurkas of Op. 56, particularly No. 3 in C minor, which contains some

of the most remarkable harmonic changes expressed by Chopin. They

foreshadow the harmonies employed a generation later by Richard 

Wagner.

Having published only eight waltzes during his lifetime, among them

Op. 64, Nos. 1-3, Chopin indicated an emphatic desire to have all of the

rest destroyed completely. His wish was not carried out, however, and

seventeen waltzes survived, five of which published posthumously. The

waltzes exemplify Chopin’s total mastery of a quintessential miniature 

form. The famous “Minute” Waltz, Op. 64, No. 1 in D-flat Major, is

reputed to have been inspired by a comment of George Sand

(1804-1876). One day, when her dog was chasing its tail, she allegedly 

asked Chopin to “set the tail to music.” Chopin acquiesced by

completing this waltz, which he introduced to a Parisian audience in

1848. That recital, one of his most daring, was also his last. The Waltz in

C-sharp Minor, Op. 64, No. 2 (dedicated to Mme. Nathaniel de

Rothschild) “is the most poetic of all...a species of veiled melancholy,”

according to James Huneker (1857-1921), the American critic, essayist, 

and author of Chopin: The Man and His Music. Dedicated to the

Countess Catherine de Branicka, the Waltz in A-flat Major, Op. 64, No.

3, is a masterpiece of “song form” (ABA), with a disposition that is

wrapped in refinement and sagacity. In the words of writer Donal

Handman, “The impression of variety which it produces is the result of

daring modulations, and [it is] that illumination, incessantly renewed,

[that] suffuses [its] two main subjects.”

Of Chopin’s six scherzos, No. 2 in B-flat Minor, Op. 31, is by far the

most familiar and the most often played. Written when Chopin was

twenty-seven years old, Op. 31 is a work of enduring grandeur that

makes especially effective use of silence as a dramatic device. Music

critic Irving Kolodin, in his essay on this work, stated: “ It is...a much

harder piece to play than the mere notes suggest, for it takes as much

talent [as it does] concentration to ‘play’ the silences that are so urgent a

part of its total effect.” Featuring a trio section that unveils a song of

unsurpassed beauty, this scherzo concludes with a dynamic coda of

resounding brilliance that gleams with emotional drama.

From the pedagogical aspect of Chopin’s short but fecund career came

a number of compositions written to develop technique or correct 

technical problems of his pupils. Among these compositions are his

preludes, etudes, nocturnes, and the Berceuse, Op. 57, a lullaby in which

the melody is spun out in an arabesque configuration over an artful but

transparent reticulation. With an unchanging bass line in a lilting 6/8

rhythmic pattern and using primarily tonic and dominant harmonies, the

Berceuse delights the listener as would a diamond glittering upon

exposure to light, or the fluttering, changing images in a kaleidoscope.
Chopin is the creator of the ballade as a genre for piano solo. His

inspiration for his four ballades was the poetry of his compatriot Adam

Mickiewicz (1798-1855). The G Minor Ballade, an expansive, bold, and

fervid composition, “is the odyssey of Chopin’s soul. In it are the surge

and thunder of the poet,” says Huneker in his introductory remarks to the

Rafael Joseffy (1852-1915) edition of the Four Ballades. It begins with

a passage that could well be reciting the typical fairy tale opening, “Once

upon a time, long ago....” Marked Largo and in 4/4 time, this seven-bar 

introduction gives way to the unfolding tale as the tempo changes to

moderato and the meter to 6/4. The deep passion expressed in the

ensuing measures seems to emanate from a pain of great longing,

possibly for the composer’s homeland. A brief reprieve, marked meno

mosso, sotto voce, changes the mood and is followed by a short,

capricious waltz. A return of the opening statement leads to a coda of

ferocious scales and octaves that brilliantly closes the work.

In a letter to his friend and alleged lover, the Countess Delfina 

Potocka, Chopin wrote: “In writing my etudes I tried to put not only

science into them, but also art. Since a virtuoso must practice for a long

time, he should be given exercises in which he will find proper food for

his ears and his soul lest he be bored to death....My etudes are a new

method of exercise, and [they] can be treacherous and dangerous for the

uninitiated.” Chopin’s second set of etudes, Op. 25, complements the

first set, Op. 10. The studies in Op. 10 follow a theoretical pattern: the

key relationships are similar to those in his Bach-inspired Preludes, Op.

28. In Op. 25, the technical difficulties are progressively more numerous

and unrelenting. There are few pianists who feel comfortable 

performing, for example, the double thirds of Etude No. 6, the double

sixths of No. 8, or the legato octave study for both hands, No. 10. Given

the challenges presented by these etudes, concert audiences do not often

have the opportunity to hear all twelve at one sitting. Cecile Licad’s

presentation of this repertoire provides a rare encounter with Chopin’s

great creative gift and demonstrates her outstanding pianistic prowess 

and intellect.

Program notes by Elmer Booze

The use ofcameras or recording equipment during

the performance is not allowed.

For the convenience ofconcertgoers

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:30 p.m.

Selectionsfrom concerts at the Gallery

can be heard on the second Sunday ofeach month

at 9:00 p.m. on WGMS-FM, 103.5.

During the month ofJanuary, recent performances

by the National Gallery Orchestra can be heard

Wednesday evenings at 9:00 p.m. on

“Musicfrom Washington,” WETA-FM, 90.9.