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.

Music Department

National Gallery of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, dc

www.nga.gov

cover: Giuseppe Arcimboldo, Four Seasons in One Head (detail), c. 1590,

National Gallery ofArt, Paul Mellon Fund

The Sixty-ninth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell

and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,809th Concert

Quaver Viol Consort

Nature and Fantasy—Painting

with Music

Presented in honor of

Arcimboldo, 1526-1593:

Nature and Fantasy

November 17, 2010 

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

East Building Auditorium

Admissionfree
Program

Giovanni Paolo Cima (1570-1630) 

Canzona detto II Capriccio

William Lawes (1602-1645)

Aire 336

Anthony Holbome (1545-1602) 

Pavana Infemum

John Dowland (1563-1626)

Weep Ye No More, Sad Fountains

Hugh Ashton (1485-1558)

Hugh Ashtons Maske

Adrian Willaert (1490-1562)

Ricercar no. 1

Zachary Wadsworth (b. 1983)

The Muses

to Calliope 

to Erato

to Thalia

to Polyhymnia

to Terpsichore

to Euterpe

to Melpomene

to Clio

to Urania

Sheryl Crow (b. 1962)

Wildflower

Arranged for viol consort by Brady Lanier

Anonymous (Sixteenth century)

La Morte de Ragione

Astor Piazzolla (1921-1992)

La Muerte del Angel

Arranged for viol consort by Tobi Szuts
The Musicians

QUAVER

The viol consort Quaver is committed to playing new and old music in ways

that engage the eclectic sensibilities ofthe iPod generation. The ensemble’s

repertoire ranges from the fifteenth-century collection assembled by Ottaviano 

Petrucci to present-day creations by American singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow,

Radiohead, and the electronica ensemble Ratatat. Quaver takes on the established masterworks for viol consort, including the music of Henry Purcell

(1659-1695) as well as music composed for viols by twentieth-century composers such as Gyorgy Ligeti (b. 1923). The ensemble’s arrangements ofmusic

by Astor Piazzolla and other popular composers appeal to a diverse audience.

MARIE DAIRY

A former member ofthe New York Consort ofViols and the baroque ensemble Flying Forms, Marie Dalby performs with numerous ensembles in the

San Francisco Bay Area and around the country. While finishing a master’s

degree in medieval history at Yale University, she was on the teaching faculty 

ofthe Neighborhood Music School in New Haven, where she also founded

and directed the Yale Temperament Consort. She regularly teaches at workshops and serves as vice president ofthe Viola da Gamba Society ofAmerica.

BRADY LANIER

An active performer on the viola da gamba, baroque cello, and modern cello,

Brady Lanier plays in numerous ensembles in the Houston area, including

the Houston Bach Society, Houston Symphony Orchestra, Revels Houston,

and Z-Viols of Houston. His career takes him around the United States on

concert tours with Ars Lyrica and Mercury Baroque. A graduate ofthe

Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, he continued his early music

studies at the Baroque Academy at Amherst and the Baroque Performance

Institute at Oberlin College. Lanier is also an active arranger and composer,

having had works performed at Carnegie Hall and by the Houston Symphony

Orchestra and the United States Air Force Orchestra.

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LOREN LUDWIG

A master ofboth acoustic and electric viols, Loren Ludwig plays in a wide 

range ofstyles. He has performed in Asia, Europe, South America, and the

United States with Catacoustic, the New York and Oberlin Consorts ofViols,

the Oberlin Baroque Ensemble, and the Smithsonian Chamber Players, as

well as many other ensembles. He is the recipient of both Fulbright and

Mellon fellowships for study and research in Holland and England, respectively. A graduate ofthe Oberlin College Conservatory of Music, where he

studied with Catharina Meints, Ludwig is currently writing a dissertation at 

the University ofVirginia titled Equal to All Alike: A Cultural History ofthe

Viol Consort in England, c. 1550-1675. He was an intern with the National

Gallery ofArt music department in 2008.

TOBISZUTS

A resident of Boston and an active participant in its thriving early music scene, 

Tobi Szuts cofounded the viol consort Long & Away. He studied with Jane 

Hershey at Longy School of Music and has worked with Wieland Kuijken.

He has played with Les Bostonades, the Harvard Early Music Society, and

Seven Times Salt in concerts that included Clerambault’s French cantatas in

and Cavalli’s opera L'Ormindo. A former leader ofthe Mather Viols, an undergraduate consort at Harvard University, Szuts also studies neuroscience.

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Program Notes

Choosing as a title for this concert “Nature and Fantasy—Painting with 

Music,” the Quaver Viol Consort brings together the sound of Renaissance 

instruments with the phantasm-filled world of Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1526-

1593)- Joining in the spirit ofinvention, the ensemble celebrates the creative

confluence ofmusic and visual art.

For many, the Impressionist era represents the highest level ofinteraction 

among the arts—from the sensuous sibilance of Paul Verlaine, who dreamt

of a moonlit poetic realm where dancers in fanciful disguises played their

lutes, to Edouard Manet’s vision ofthe port of Boulogne colored by lush new

chords, to the ethereal sunken cathedral ofClaude Debussy. It is a popular

view that the fusion of poetry, painting, and music reached its ideal state

around the turn ofthe twentieth century.

Centuries earlier, however, philosophers, poets, musicians, and artists 

borrowed from each other as they explored nature with touches ofmagical 

fantasy. In 1591 the Milanese cleric Gregorio Comanini, an associate and

friend ofArcimboldo, wrote: “The art ofmusic and the art of painting walk

along the same path and follow the same laws of creation.” For his own part,

Arcimboldo used tonal theories derived from music theory to create scales of

color values.

Noting that the overlapping sonorities ofthe viola da gamba family were 

a treasured aspect ofmusic in Arcimboldo’s time, Quaver has identified major 

themes of his art that also find voice in Renaissance music—the intricacies 

ofhuman inventiveness, nature and its beauties contrasting with the inevitability ofdeath, and the fantasy world ofthe heavens and its creatures. As a

playful opening prelude, Cima’s Canzona combines dance rhythms with the

polyphonic fantasy of a capriccio. In the next four pieces, Quaver employs

word play to represent the elements of natural science—air, fire, water, and

earth—in music by great English viol composers. William Lawes’ Aire, a

rare example offour-part music from a composer who often preferred heavier

forces, is followed by Anthony Holborne’s Pavana Infemum, calling to mind

the flames made famous by Dante. John Dowland’s weeping fountains flow

like tears (he willingly encouraged the rumor that his name came from the

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Latin dolente, which means mournful), while Hugh Ashton graciously celebrates earthly pleasures at a masked ball where the ground bass (a repeating

figure) supports the swirling divisions ofthe upper parts.

Sheryl Crow’s lovely Wildflower, produced through the alchemy of nature

and fantasy, shifts modes as gently as windblown petals. The ethereal muses

receive musical homage in the nine-movement suite by contemporary composer Zachary Wadsworth, while the complex weaving ofthemes in the music

ofAdrian Willaert perfectly suits the intricacy and complexity ofthe fantastic 

composite heads that Arcimboldo created by juxtaposing flora and fauna in

imaginative ways.

The penultimate and final pieces on the program make reference to

death. Astor Piazzolla’s tango La Muerte del Angel (The death ofthe angel)

entices the listener from a strict fugal theme toward a sensuous climax.

Once again there is a close connection to the overall theme ofthe concert, as

one remembers that, in the Renaissance, death was a poetic double entendre for the most intense physical pleasure.

The exhibition Arcimboldo, 1526-15^: Nature and Fantasy remains on 

view in the East Building until January 9, 2011.

Program notes by Dr. G. Yvonne Kendall, associate professor ofarts and

humanities, University ofHouston

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