Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

Chris Brubeck’s Triple Play

Jazz, blues, and folk music for the holidays

December 23, 2007

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

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 East 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

cover: Paul Stevenson Oles, 1971, National Gallery of Art Archives

The Sixty-sixth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,650th Concert

Leipzig String Quartet

Andreas Seidel and Tilman Biining, violin

Ivo Bauer, viola

Matthias Moosdorf, cello

December 16, 2007

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

East Building Auditorium

Admissionfree
Program

Music by Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)

String Quartet in B-flat Major, op. 18, no. 6 (1798-1800)

Allegro con brio

Adagio ma non troppo 

Scherzo: Allegro; Trio

La malincolia: Adagio; allegretto quasi allegro

String Quartet in F Minor, op. 95 (“Serioso”) (1810)

Allegro con brio

Allegretto, ma non troppo 

Allegro assai vivace, ma serioso 

Larghetto expressivo; allegretto agitato

INTERMISSION

String Quartet in A Minor, op. 132 (“Heiliger Dankgesang”) (1825)

Assai sostenuto; allegro

Allegro ma non tanto

Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen, in der Lydischen Tonart 

Alla Marcia, assai vivace

Allegro appassionato

This concert is made possible in part by funds provided by

the Embassy Series and is presented in cooperation with the 

Embassy ofthe Federal Republic of Germany.

The Musicians

Formed in 1988, the Leipzig String Quartet is widely acclaimed as one of

the most exciting string quartets on the international chamber music scene.

Its availability at this time in Washington provides an ideal opportunity for

the Embassy ofthe Federal Republic of Germany, the Embassy Series, and

the National Gallery ofArt to join in celebrating the birthday of Ludwig van

Beethoven (born December 16,1770). The ensemble has been described as

“one ofthe towering and most versatile quartets of our time” (Neue Zuercher

Zeitung), and a New York Times critic wrote, “ifthere is a Leipzig sound, this

is it!” Three members ofthe Leipzig String Quartet occupied first chairs in

the famous Gewandhaus Orchestra. Among prizes awarded to the group are

the 1991 International Competition of ard Munich (Arbeitsgemeinschaft 

der offentlich-rechtlichen Rundfunkanstalten der Bundesrepublik) and the 

Busch and Siemens prizes.

The quartet has concertized throughout Africa, Australia, Central and

South America, Europe, Israel, Japan, and Southeast Asia. North American

engagements include a recent appearance with pianist Christian Zimmermann at Lincoln Center’s Alice Tully Hall, Carnegie Hall's quartet series 

in Weill Recital Hall, the 92nd Street Y, The Frick Collection, the Library

of Congress, and WolfTrap as well as engagements at the Casals Festival

in San Juan, Puerto Rico, the Orford and Toronto Summer Music Festivals,

and the Ottawa Chamber Music Festival. The quartet was one ofthe initiators ofthe 1996 and 1997 Beethoven Quartet Cycles, offered jointly with

five other quartets in more than fifteen European music centers as a sign 

of European friendship.

The quartet’s more than sixty recordings include a broad repertoire that

stretches from Mozart to Cage and have garnered international critical acclaim

and awards. The Leipzig String Quartet records exclusively for mdg (Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm) and appears at the National Gallery by

arrangement with Shupp Artists Management of Port Jefferson, New York.
precede it with a large sonata form. The opening Allegro is craggy and 

even belligerent in tone, based on several terse ideas which include a

slow-moving motive in melodic half-steps, a melancholic violin line. The

second movement, Allegro ma non troppo, is a long Scherzo in the key of

A major, developed almost entirely from an initial violin motive, and

paired with a central trio whose flowing themes feature frequent rhythmic

displacements. The pivotal middle movement, Heiliger Danksagung, uses

the Lydian mode to create an antique religious flavor. The theme is

treated as a chorale prelude, with each phrase preceded by a brief

introduction, followed by two variations with increasingly elaborate

counterpoint. An atmosphere of timeless piety is unmistakable. What

follows seems almost incongruous, an Alla marcia that seems blatantly

out of place following the exalted realms of the Adagio. Soon the Finale

itself appears, based on a theme that had originally been intended for the 

Ninth Symphony, but which was replaced by the famous choral ending.

Here it becomes the subject for a vast sonata-rondo that proclaims victory

in its closing pages. For the noted French music critic Romain Rolland

this quartet was “the work that is the most difficult, perhaps the most

profound of all Beethoven’s works.”

Program notes by Louis J. Reith, Georgetown University Library

The Embassy Series (www.embassyseries.org) thanks the following

sponsors of this event:

Donal and Paula Donovan; BDO Seidman LLP (www.bdo.com);

Wedmore Place and The Williamsburg Winery and Mr. Patrick Duffeler

I, Mr. Peter Margan and Ms. Courtney Darden

(www.wedmoreplace.com) (www.williamsburgwinery.com)

BDO

The

Williamsburg

WlNERYUM1TEU

We are also indebted to The National Gallery of Art and Mr. Stephen

Ackert, Head of the Music Department, and to The Ambassador of

The Federal Republic of Germany and Mrs. Scharioth for their kind

cooperation.

y-. The

Embassy Series

Concerts in Embassies and Ambassadors’ Residences- www.embassyseries.org

Program Notes - Music by Ludwig van Beethoven

(December 16, 1770-March 26, 1827)

Beethoven composed sixteen highly acclaimed string quartets. These

quartets can be divided into three more or less distinct periods of the

composer’s life between the years 1798 and 1825. Each of the three

quartets comprising this program comes from a different stage in the

composer’s musical development, hence each sings with its own

unique voice.

The String Quartet in B-flat Major, op. 18, no. 6, was composed

sometime between 1798 and 1800 and was published in 1801 as the

last of a cycle of six quartets. These early efforts, which owe much to

the inspiration of Haydn and Mozart, were inspired in part by Carl

Amenda (1771-1836), a theological student from Latvia who was also

a gifted violinist. He came to Vienna in 1798 and found posts as a 

music teacher in the house of Mozart’s widow, and also as tutor to the

children of Prince Joseph von Lobkowitz (1772-1816), a scion of the

Bohemian nobility who became one of Beethoven’s great patrons and

a celebrated lover of music in his own right. Already in 1798

Beethoven promised Lobkowitz his first set of string quartets. When

Amenda had to return to Latvia in June 1799 for family reasons,

Beethoven presented him with the first set of the Lobkowitz quartets

as “a small memorial of our friendship.” The B-flat quartet is the last

of the set, but in many ways it is the most forward looking of the

group. The first movement, an Allegro con brio, opens with a 

conversation between the first violin and the cello. As Geraint Lewis

has observed: “Haydn nevertheless remains a ubiquitous and creative

presence.” The theme of the second movement, Adagio ma non

troppo, likewise bears the imprint of Haydn. But the extraordinary

Scherzo takes us into uncharted waters of rhythmic ambiguity and
cross-accents. It is followed by the highlight of the quartet, a Finale

which opens softly with the composer’s instruction: “This piece is to

be played with the greatest delicacy.” He styled the movement La

Malinconia, and, according to Geraint Lewis: “It is full of disturbing 

jabs and rumblings and clearly has some programmatic or

autobiographical significance,” though a connection to the composer’s

growing deafness may be too facile. Perhaps the intended effect is

intentionally ironic, for soon we are either back in a Viennese

ballroom or part of a German country dance. Lewis concludes that 

Beethoven’s imitation of Haydn “while sincere enough is also a

symptom of his deep desire to stretch his claws and jump decisively

into the nineteenth-century.”

The String Quartet in F Minor, op. 95 (“Serioso”) is one of the

shortest and most compact of all the Beethoven quartets. The

autograph manuscript for this quartet is marked October 1810, fully a

decade later than the first quartet on this program. It is more likely that

he finished it around 1811, premiered it in 1814 and published it in

1816. In defense of this late publication date, Beethoven alleged that

“it is written for a small circle of connoisseurs and is never to be

performed in public.” A historical survey of the year 1810 may help to

put the piece in context. Napoleon had invaded Vienna earlier that

year, and this upset Beethoven greatly. All of his aristocratic friends

had fled Vienna, but Beethoven stayed and then complained about the

loud artillery volleys which occurred. The quartet is dedicated to a

Slovak civil servant, Nikolaus Zmeskall von Domanovecz (1759-

1833), an excellent cellist who took part in Prince Lichnowsky’s

chamber music concerts, where Beethoven’s works were frequently on

the program.

The opening Allegro con brio presents a terse motto, played by the

four instruments in unison, which sets the tone for the entire work. A

persistent turbulent undercurrent can be felt beneath the lyrical surface

of the movement. According to Harry Haskell: “In music, as in life,

Beethoven struggled to find a balance between heroic affirmation and

near-suicidal depression.” A descending cello scale introduces a song

of touching beauty, marked Allegretto, ma non troppo. But instead of a

tranquil close, we return to a bracing Allegro assai vivace, ma serioso

(quite lively, but serious), whose rugged chords seem to have been

hewn out of stone. The Finale opens quietly but soon moves into an

Allegretto agitato that runs the gamut from wistful tenderness to

fierce, almost savage despair. A breathless Coda (which has frustrated 

countless music critics) brings the quartet to an unexpectedly upbeat 

conclusion.

The String Quartet in A Minor, op. 132 (“Heiliger Danksagung”) was

the second of a pair commissioned by Prince Nikolai Galitzin (1794-

1866), a Russian nobleman whose relative was Russian ambassador to

the Viennese court from 1762 to 1792. In November 1822 the prince 

commissioned Beethoven to write “one, two, or three new quartets, for

which labor I will be glad to pay you whatever amount you think

proper.” As a competent cellist, he delighted in playing Beethoven’s

string music. Beethoven accepted immediately and set the fee of 50

ducats for each quartet. “I am really impatient to have a new quartet 

of yours,” the prince wrote, “nevertheless, I beg you not to mind and to

be guided in this only by your inspiration and the disposition of your

mind.” The first (Op. 127), promised for the end of March 1823, was

not completed until February 1825. The A Minor quartet was finished

five months later and was given its public premiere on 6 November 

1825. Composing this quartet was a painful physical experience for

Beethoven, who complained to Dr. Anton Braunhofer on 18 April

1825: “I am not feeling well. I hope that you will not refuse to come to

my help, for I am in great pain.” The good doctor, alarmed by

Beethoven’s condition, prescribed: “No wine, no coffee; no spices of

any kind.” He also advocated recuperation in the country with plenty 

of “fresh air” and “natural milk.” By 7 May, Beethoven had recovered 

sufficiently to move to Baden, on the edge of the Vienna Woods,

where he composed most of this quartet. The illness and recovery

apply directly to the centerpiece of the work, a magnificent Adagio

entitled the Heiliger Danksagung, or, Sacred Song ofThanksfrom One

Made Well to the Divine, in the Lydian Mode. Maynard Solomon

observes that “music here appears to have become an implicit agency

of healing, a talisman against death.”

To support a slow movement of such magnitude requires

surrounding music of worthy proportions, and Beethoven chose to