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Cover Cornelis Ploos van Amstel after

Hendrick Avercamp, The Winter King on

the Ice (detail), 1766, National Gallery of

Art, Gift of Sherwood B. Smith,Jr.

nga.gov/music

76TH SEASON OF CONCERTS

DECEMBER 3, 2017 / NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
Program

Inna Faliks, piano

Daniel Schlosberg, piano

DECEMBER 3, 2017/3:30

WEST BUILDING, WEST GARDEN COURT

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

Symphony no. 6 in A Minor

Arr. for piano, four-hands, by Alexander von Zemlinsky

Allegro energico, ma non troppo. lleftig, aber markig

Andante moderato

Scherzo: Wuchtig

Finale: Sostenuto; Allegro moderato; Allegro energico

2

The Musicians

INNA FALIKS

Described as “adventurous and passionate” by the New Yorker, Ukrainian-born pianist

Inna Faliks has established herself as one ofthe most exciting, committed, communicative, and poetic artists of her generation. Renowned for her versatility, she is equally at

home with great concerti, standard solo repertoire, chamber music, interdisciplinary

projects, and the work of contemporary composers. After her acclaimed debut with 

the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, she has performed on world stages with numerous

orchestras, in solo appearances, and with conductors such as Leonard Slatkin and

Keith Lockhart. Critics have praised her “signature blend oflithe grace and raw power”

(Lucid Culture), “poetry and panoramic vision” (Washington Post), and “riveting passion,

playfulness” (Baltimore Sun).

Faliks’s career has taken her to recitals and concerti in prestigious venues in the

Linked States, Europe, and Asia. Winner ofmany competitions, including the Pro

Musicis International Award, she has been featured on radio and international television and has performed at New York’s Carnegie Hall, the Metropolitan Museum ofArt,

and Le Poisson Rouge, and also at Salle Cortot, Paris, and Tchaikovsky Hall, Moscow.

An artist committed to genre-bending and new music, as well as to the core 

repertoire, Faliks is working on Reimagine: Ravel and Beethoven, a project that is

commissioning today’s leading composers, such as Timo Andres, Richard Danielpour,

Billy Childs, and Paola Prestini, to create responses to pieces by Ravel and Beethoven. 

Faliks is the founder and curator ofMusic/Words, a series that pairs live performances

with readings by established contemporary poets. The series has been heard and 

seen nationwide for eight seasons. Faliks teaches piano at the LTiversity of California,

Los Angeles.

DANIEL SCHLOSBERG

Daniel Schlosberg has been described as an “expert pianist” (Boston Globe), and his

performances have been praised for their “intellect and passion” (Washington Post).

As a collaborative pianist, he was noted by the Baltimore Sun for being “a model

accompanist, bringing out the remarkable richness of the piano writing.”

Schlosberg enjoys a multifaceted relationship with the Chicago Symphony

Orchestra, appearing on numerous chamber music and new music concerts. He can 

be heard on many recordings, including Stephen Andrew Taylor’s Quark Shadows

(Albany Records) with members of the Pacifica Quartet and the Chicago Symphony. 

Last year saw the release ofAugusta Read Thomas’s solo 2013 work Starlight Ribbons

(Nimbus Records) and Gaul Me Maybe: French Baroque Keyboard Works (Centaur),

Schlosberg’s second solo album. His most recent recording is of Lei Liang’s Inkscape

with Third Coast Percussion (New World Records).

3
Schlosberg is an avid proponent of new music and has collaborated with Eighth

Blackbird, Third Coast Percussion, and the International Contemporary Ensemble.

He was also a founding member ofYarn/Wire. In 2009, he gave the US premiere of

renowned composer Kaija Saariaho’s Calices with violinist Austin Wulliman.

On harpsichord, Schlosberg has participated in the world premiere ofAnna

Clyne’s OfSudden Shut on MusicNOW; the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s new 

music series; the continuo and recitative for Le nozze di Figaro for Opera Notre Dame; 

and excerpts from Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons with Itzhak Perlman at Carnegie Hall.

4

Program Notes

So much attention has been paid to the psychological and emotional turmoil of

Gustav Mahler the person, and the way his music both bids farewell to the nineteenth century and sounds the alarm for the upcoming calamities of the twentieth,

that we forget what amazing structures some of his symphonies are, the Sixth

Symphony in particular. The scholar Richard Atkinson—who has a wonderful

music theory YouTube channel —insists that the finale of the Sixth is the greatest

of all Mahler symphony movements, and while such grand pronouncements are 

an old-fashioned type of metric, he may be right. “A Symphony must be like the

world, it must contain everything,” Mahler said to Sibelius in 1907, a year after the

premiere. The Finale of the Sixth contains an extremely wide range of emotions,

all within a compositional framework that, despite all of the excesses of the medium

and the time, makes architectural sense.

The symphony’s additional title “Tragic” did not appear on the manuscript, or

in the first editions of either the orchestral or four-hand versions, but Mahler seems 

to have approved of it, and may have invented it, but the history is unsubstantiated.

What is clear is that after a kaleidoscopic, hour-plus of music, the Finale closes in an

epically somber and grave mood. Central to the creation of that mood are the two 

(sometimes three) hammer blows, monumental thuds from a specially made percussion instrument (the hammerschlag) that signal the inevitability of fateful life/

musical events. Contributing to the tragedy is the funerary tempo at the very end, 

and the fact that the Sixth is the only one ofMahler’s symphonies to end in the

minor mode, in this case the particularly repressed key of A minor.

While the Finale, quite naturally, steals the show, the other movements are also

nothing short of extraordinary. The first movement alludes immediately to soldiers

on the march, and follows it with a most ardent, passionate second theme that Mahler

insisted referred to his wife, Alma. Eater on, we hear ethereal sounds—cowbells in

the orchestra version and tremolos this afternoon. The slow movement achieves a

breathtaking poignancy, and one could argue that it is structurally more developed

than the justly famous Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony. The Scherzo resumes

the first movement’s militaristic tendencies, punctuated by leisurely diversions in the

friendly, charming Austrian countryside.

Much has been made over the ordering of the middle two movements. It has

been generally agreed that Mahler ended up preferring the order we are using, 

placing the slow movement second. This version creates space between the two big

A-minor movements of the first movement and the Scherzo, and of course honors

Mahler’s ultimate intentions.

5
Today’s rarely performed transcription is by Alexander Zemlinsky, a close friend

ofMahler and a composer of great significance in his own right. He also happened to

be Alma’s partner before she defected to Mahler.

It has been mentioned often, with some irony, that the “Tragic” was composed

during one ofMahler’s most happy and successful periods. Shortly thereafter, he

experienced the loss of his job at the Vienna Opera, the death of his young daughter,

and a grim prognosis for his own health. This premonitory aspect can be moving to

some, irrelevant to others.

All ofMahler’s symphonies are valued, but the Sixth and Ninth Symphonies

have gained prominence over the past twenty years. Marin Alsop recently called the

Sixth “the most fitting symphony for our time.” While some may question whether

a four-hand arrangement, which was not originally intended for public performance,

can do the work any kind ofjustice, others, I hope, will find unexpected details and

structures that come into greater focus.

Program notes by Daniel Schlosberg

6

Upcoming Events ofthe SeventySixth Season of The William

Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot

Belin Concerts

Unless otherwise noted, all programs

take place in the West Building,

West Garden Court.

Caroling in the Rotunda

December 9, 10, 16 & 17, 1:30 & 2:30

The Swiss-American Musical Society 

Igor Stravinsky, The Soldier's Tale

Christophe Sturzenegger,

The Snow Queen

Christophe Sturzenegger, conductor

Robert Baker, narrator

December 10, 3:30

Turtle Island Quartet

With special guest Liz Carroll

Winter's Eve

December 17,4:00

Harlem Symphony Orchestra

Music by Jessie Montgomery,

James Lee III, and Mozart

January 7, 2018, 3:30

Juho Pohjonen, piano

Music by Bach and Mozart

January 14, 3:30

Piffaro, The Renaissance Band

Celebrating Vermeer and the Masters of

Genre Painting: Inspiration and Rivalry

January 21, 3:30

Sybarite 5

Outliers

Celebrating Outliers andAmerican

VanguardAn

January 28, 3:30

Daniel Bernard Roumain, violin 

Yayoi Ikawa, piano

Redemption Songs and Sonatas

February 4, 3:30

Curtis on Tour

A Celebration ofLeonard Ber~nstein

February 11, 3:30

Trio con Brio Copenhagen

To Travel Is to Live

Music by Grieg, Gade, Mendelssohn,

and Tchaikovsky 

February 18, 3:30

Narek Hakhnazaryan, cello 

Noreen Polera, piano

Music by Albeniz, Brahms,

Schumann, and others

February 25, 3:30

Ethel

Blue Dressfor String Quartet

March 4, 3:30

Janoska Ensemble

Classical music with jazz, gypsy, tango,

Latin, and a dash of pop

March 11, 3:30