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 ofthe 

West Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

For the convenience of concertgoers, 

the Garden Cafe remains open for light refreshments

until 6:00 pm on Sundays.

Music Department

National Gallery of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, dc

www.nga.gov

The Seventieth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,859th Concert

Steven Spooner, pianist

November 27, 2011

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Schubert/Liszt

Wohin? (Where?) S. 565-5

Standchen (Serenade) S. 560-7 

From Schwanengesang (Swan Song)

Erlkonig (Elf King), S. 558

Mohammed Fairouz (b. 1985)

Piano Sonata no. 2 (2011)

The Last Resistance

Retro Recollections on 21st and 8th

Freud Goes to Abu Ghraib

Men and Women in Dark Times

Washington Premiere Performance

INTERMISSION

Lassen/Liszt

Lose, Himmel, meine Seele (Heaven, Redeem My Soul), S. 495

Chopin/Liszt

Maiden’s Wish, S. 480

Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

Saint Frangois de Paule marchant sur lesflots

(Saint Francis de Paul Walking on the Water)

From Legendes, S. 175 (1864)

II penseroso (The Thoughtful Man)

From Annees de pelerinage (Years of Pilgrimage), Book II (“Italie”),

S. 161 (1858)

Hungarian Rhapsody no. 13, S. 244-13 (1853)

Sponsored by the Richard B. and Sarah J. Marsten Charitable

Remainder Unitrust
The Musicians

Described as “dazzling” by the Washington Post, Steven Spooner has performed around the world and is quickly becoming one ofthe noted American

pianists ofhis generation. He has given solo recitals at Carnegie Hall and

numerous venues in Europe, including the Great Hall ofthe Liszt Academy 

in Budapest, the Salle Cortot in Paris, and the Vredenburg Centre in Utrecht,

as well as major concert halls in Latin America and South America. A prizewinner at each ofthe seven international piano competitions he has entered,

he took top prizes at the Artlivre International Piano Competition and the

Hilton Head International Piano Competition. During his time ofstudy at 

the Paris Conservatory, he earned its Premier Prix and received the Niekamp

Career Grant as most outstanding pianist in French music.

Spooner has released fourteen recordings on the emr Classics, Everythingmusic, and iu recording labels. In addition to the Paris Conservatory, 

he studied at the Moscow and Tbilisi conservatories in the former Soviet

Union and earned his doctorate at Indiana University. Thanks to an Ivory

Classics Foundation prize, he was able to undertake additional studies with

the legendary virtuoso Earl Wild.

A member ofthe artist faculty ofthe Amalfi Coast Music Festival in Vietri

sul Mare, Italy; the Adam Gyorgy Castle Academy in Budapest, Hungary;

and the International Institute for Young Musicians in Lawrence, Kansas, 

Spooner is increasingly in demand for his engaging and energetic master

classes at the Liszt Academy of Music and the music conservatories of

Beijing, Milan, Paris, and Shanghai. A Steinway artist, he currently serves

on the piano faculty at the University of Kansas.

4

Program Notes

Straddling Eastern and Western idioms, Arab American composer Mohammed

Fairouz has emerged as a force on the musical scene. His music has been

heard at Carnegie Hall, Boston’s Symphony Hall, and the Kennedy Center

as well as in Australia, Europe, and the Middle East. He has received commissions from Alea m (Boston University), Alwan for the Arts, Counterinduction, the Cygnus Ensemble, Imani Winds (Legacy Commission),

Musicians for Harmony, Northeastern University, and the Second Instrumental Unit, among others. Recognized in 2008 by the New England

Conservatory with the prestigious Tourjee Alumni Award, Fairouz is also a

recipient ofthe Malcolm Morse Memorial Award, the NEC Honors award,

awards from the Merit Funds ofthe New England and Boston Conservatories, and a national citation from the Embassy ofthe United Arab Emirates

in Washington for outstanding achievement in artistry and scholarship.

Fairouz’s teachers of composition include Halim El-Dabh, John Heiss,

Malcolm Peyton, Gunther Schuller, and Yehudi Wyner. Commissioned by

Reach Out Kansas, Inc., his second piano sonata was written to commemorate the two-hundredth anniversary ofthe birth of Franz Liszt.

About the sonata, Fairouz writes: “My Second Piano Sonata (“The Last

Resistance”) takes its title from a collection of essays Jacqueline Rose, a

British academic who is currently professor of English at Queen Mary College,

University of London. This four-movement work engages the spirit ofthe

post-9/11 essays by prophesying difficult times ahead in the first movement;

representing post-9/11 Manhattan in the second; crying out a lamentation in

the third (“Freud Goes to Abu Ghraib”); and portraying men and women in

dark times in a vicious finale.”

In 1863 Franz Liszt received an invitation from the librarian of Pope 

Pius ix to seek spiritual comfort at the Oratory ofthe Madonna del Rosario 

in Rome. Upon completion ofthe two year retreat, Liszt took the first offour

orders that were steps to the priesthood. During the same period, he composed music inspired by two religious legends— Saint Francis ofAssisi Preaching to the Birds and Saint Francis de Paul Walking on the Waters. Representing

his meditation on divine subjects, these musical legends demonstrate Liszt’s

5
skill at pianistic coloration. In Saint Francis de Paul Walking on the Waters,

one hears a flood ofwatery sounds and the turbulence that rages just under

the surface ofthe water as Saint Francis proceeds unharmed.

Liszt’s “years of pilgrimage” in Italy were filled with visits to famous

landmarks and works of art, including Michelangelo’s Tomb ofLorenzo de’

Medici in the Church of San Lorenzo in Florence. Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino,

is memorialized by an idealized sculpture— II Penseroso—representing the

thoughtful life, indicated by his furrowed brow, his left elbow resting on a

closed cashbox, and the index finger ofhis raised hand covering his mouth,

as ifto admonish the onlooker to silence. When the second volume of

Annees de pelerinage was published in 1858, Liszt attached a quatrain by

Michelangelo to II Penseroso:

Dear to me is sleep; and more dear to be made ofstone;

As long as there exists injustice and shame.

Not to see and not to hear is a great blessing to me;

Therefore, do not disturb me!

Speak softly!

Liszt’s musical depiction is a severe lento march in minor key, with

constant dotted rhythms. A walking bass accentuates the somberness ofthe

piece until a unique moment oflightness occurs with a sequence in the

music anticipatory of Richard Wagner’s chromatic writing.

Having begun his recital with Liszt’s transcriptions and arrangements

of Schubert songs, Steven Spooner concludes with one of Liszt’s nineteen

Hungarian Rhapsodies, which the composer wrote for piano solo and later

transcribed in versions for piano duet, piano trio, and full orchestra. Marked

by sudden changes in tempo from slow to fast (lassu andfriss), they spring

from the composer’s love of Hungarian folk dance melodies and rhythms.

Program notes by Stephen Ackert, head ofthe music department,

National Gallery ofArt

6

Next week at the National Gallery ofArt

Pacifica String Quartet

Music by Beethoven

December 4, 2011

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Thomas Hrynkiw, pianist

Music by Ukrainian composers

December 7, 2011

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

East Building Auditorium

The Rose Ensemble

Early Mediterranean Arab, Christian,

and Sephardic music

December 11, 2011

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court