The use of cameras or recording equipment during the 

performance is not allowed. Please be sure that cell phone

pagers, and other electronic devices are turned off.

Please note that late entry or reentry of

the West Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

www.nga.gov

cover: Georges Braque, Still Life: Le Jour, 1929,

National Gallery ofArt, Chester Dale Collection

The Sixty-ninth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,818th Concert

Bruno Nasta, violinist

with

Danielle DeSwert Hahn, piano

David Niethamer, clarinet

Ronald Chiles, piano

Jonathan Nazdin, bass

Presented in honor of

From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection

January 16, 2011

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Darius Milhaud (1892-1974)

Suitefor Violin, Piano, and Clarinet, op. 157b (1936)

Overture

Divertissement

Jeu

Introduction et finale

Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971)

L' Histoire du soldat (The Soldier’s Tale) (1918)

Arranged by Igor Stravinsky for clarinet, violin, and piano.

Marche du soldat

Le Violon du soldat

Petit Concert

Tango-valse-rag

La Danse du diable

INTERMISSION

The Petite Sweet Suite

“Twelfth Street Rag” by Euday L. Bowman

“That’s a Plenty” by Lew Pollack and Ray Gilbert

“Tango Jealousie” by Jacob Gade

“I Love You” by Cole Porter

“The Man I Love” by George and Ira Gershwin

“Farewell Polka” by Philip Mathieu
The Musicians

BRUNO NASTA

A resident of Reston, Virginia, violinist Bruno Nasta graduated from James

Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia, with a degree in music

performance. Early in his career, he was a member ofthe Richmond

Symphony Orchestra and Richmond Chamber Players in residence at the 

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. As an orchestra contractor and performer, 

he has worked with a wide range ofmusicians including Tony Bennett,

Ray Charles, John Denver, Gloria Estefan, Denyce Graves, Lyle Lovett, Liza

Minnelli, Luciano Pavarotti, The Three Tenors, The Who, and Yes.

Nasta can be heard on several GRAMMY-nominated recordings, including a 1997 performance as concertmaster ofThe Taliesan Orchestra that was

ranked number one on Billboard’s charts in the classical crossover category.

A featured soloist on Eva Cassidy’s multi-platinum selling recordings Imagine

and American Tune, his improvisatory violin solos are featured on Kathy Fink

and Marcy Marxer’s GRAMMY-winning recording Bon Appetit! In 2003 Nasta

received a “Wammie” award from the Washington Area Music Association 

for best classical artist. He is lead violinist with the Gypsy Strings and

maintains a vigorous freelancing schedule, actively recording and performing in the symphony, opera, and theater orchestras ofgreater Baltimore and

Washington, DC. Musical performance credits for film include Crazy like a

Fox and the recent documentary Yoo-hoo Mrs. Goldberg.

Personnel director ofthe National Gallery Orchestra since 1998, Nasta

was named assistant to the National Gallery ofArt’s music department

in 2002. In 2008 his responsibilities were expanded to include program

coordinator and master of ceremonies for the Gallery’s “Jazz in the Garden”

summer concert series.

4

DANIELLE DESWERT HAHN

Brussels-born pianist Danielle DeSwert Hahn is a freelance collaborative

pianist and coach and the music program specialist at the National Gallery

ofArt. She has worked as a pianist and coach with the Ash Lawn Highland

Opera Festival, Chautauqua Opera, Indianapolis Opera, Kentucky Opera, the 

New Orleans Opera Association, Portland (Oregon) Opera, the San Francisco

Opera Center, Sarasota Opera, and the Washington National Opera. From

2004 to 2006 she was the principal repetiteur with the Baltimore Opera

Company and Washington Concert Opera. Much in demand as a collaborative

pianist, she performs regularly in instrumental and voice recitals, including

performances at the Arts Club ofWashington, the Jewish Community Center 

of Greater Washington, the Kennedy Center, the Mexican Institute ofCulture,

the National Gallery, the Russian Embassy, and the White House. She is

principal pianist with the Inscape Chamber Music Project. The recipient of

a master ofmusic degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where 

she studied with Martin Katz, and a bachelor ofmusic degree from the 

University ofCalifornia, Santa Barbara, Hahn also studied with Warren Jones

and Anne Epperson at the Music Academy ofthe West and was an apprentice coach with the Washington Opera, working, with Placido Domingo.

DAVID NIETHAMER

David Niethamer teaches clarinet at Longwood University and the University

of Richmond, where he also conducts the University Wind Ensemble. He

performs with the Richmond Chamber Players, where he was artistic director

from 1994-1997, and with the National Gallery ofArt Orchestra. From 1979

to 2002, Niethamer was the principal clarinetist ofthe Richmond Symphony

Orchestra. During his first season with that orchestra, Niethamer won

critical acclaim and national recognition for the American premiere performances ofAndre Casanova’s Balladefor Clarinet and String Orchestra. He

5
has also performed with the Virginia Symphony Orchestra and numerous

chamber ensembles, including the Brentano, Composers, and Lenox String

Quartets and the Kandinsky Trio. From 1982 to 1992 Neithamer was the

clarinetist and artistic director ofthe Roxbury Chamber Players. His teaching

career has included two years as visiting lecturer of clarinet and chamber

music at Ithaca College, and he has conducted master classes and workshops

at Furman University, Oberlin College, Tennessee Technological University, 

and the University ofAlabama in Huntsville, the University ofNorth Carolina 

at Chapel Hill, and the University ofVermont. For seven years Niethamer

served on the board ofVirginians for the Arts, a statewide organization

encouraging funding for the Virginia Commission for the Arts.

RONALD M. CHILES

A former member and piano soloist ofthe United States Navy Band in

Washington, DC, Ronald Chiles also served as the musical director and

accompanist ofthe Navy Band Sea Chanters. He was the featured soloist on

three separate occasions with the Boston Pops Orchestra and performed as

soloist with National Symphony Orchestra under Leonard Slatkin. He has

worked with Sammy Davis, Jr., Aretha Franklin, Denyce Graves, Marvin

Hamlisch, Joni Mitchell, and Frank Sinatra.

Chiles holds degrees from the University ofArkansas and The Catholic

University ofAmerica. Currently the musical director ofthe Musical Theater

Lab at the University ofMaryland, College Park, he is active as an accompanist

and performer at Ford's Theater, the Hippodrome in Baltimore, the Kennedy

Center, and the National Theater.

JONATHAN NAZDIN

A native ofWashington, DC, Jonathan Nazdin attended the Berklee College 

of Music in Boston and received a diploma in composition. A freelance

musician, Nazdin performs in a wide variety ofstyles including country and

western, orchestral, jazz, and rock.

6

Program Notes

Born in Marseilles, France, to a Jewish family from Aix-en-Provence, Darius

Milhaud studied at the Paris Conservatory with Charles-Marie Widor (1844 —

1937) and privately with Vincent D’Indy (1851-1931). As a young man he

worked for Paul Claudel, poet and dramatist and cultural attache at the

French Embassy in Brazil. In 1922 Milhaud traveled to New York City and

experienced American jazz for the first time in Harlem. These associations

greatly influenced his musical outlook. To escape the German occupation,

the composer and his family left France in 1939 and immigrated to America.

He secured a teaching position at Mills College in Oakland, California, and

began composing. Thanks in part to a sympathetic response to his string

quartets from the Budapest and Paganini quartets, his compositions were

soon heard in prestigious music festivals in Aspen, Colorado, and Los

Angeles. The French press included Milhaud in a group of composers that

became known as “Les Six,” which also included Georges Auric, Louis Durey,

Arthur Honegger, Francis Poulenc, and Germaine Tailleferre. He produced

innovative works for the concert stage, film, radio, and theater, as well as

electro-acoustic music and music for children, and numbered among his

students some ofthe most celebrated jazz performers and composers of

the next generation, including Burt Bacharach, Dave Brubeck, Philip Glass,

and Steve Reich. Milhaud’s best-known compositions are the ballets Le Boeuf

sur le toit and La Creation du monde and the concert piece Scaramouch for

saxophone and piano.

Milhaud composed the Suitefor Violin, Clarinet, and Piano, opus 157b,

as incidental music for the Jean Anouilh play Le Voyageur sans bagage (The

Traveler without Luggage). It shows influences ofmodal harmonies, jazz,

and the rhythmic complexities of Latin American and Jewish music.

Blessed with a long and productive life, Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky

composed music, performed as a concert pianist, conducted orchestras, and

authored books. Born in Oranienbaum, Russia (renamed Lomonosov in

1948), he was raised in Saint Petersburg, where his father was a bass singer

in the Mariinsky Theater. In 1910 he left Russia for Switzerland, eventually

residing in France and the United States. Noted for his inexhaustible desire

7
to explore and learn about art, literature, and life, he proved adept at playing

the part of “man ofthe world,” acquiring a keen instinct for business

matters as well as a broad knowledge of all ofthe fine arts. Widely acknowledged as being one ofthe most important and influential composers ofthe

twentieth century, Stravinsky is known for his lush and innovative orchestrations and stylistic diversity, ranging from primitive offbeat rhythmic drive to 

neoclassicism, incorporation offolk material, and serialism. His innovations

sometimes caused extreme public reaction. The Rite ofSpring, for example,

provoked a riot at the Paris Opera House in 1913 on the occasion ofits

premiere performance, and his unconventional use ofthe major seventh

chord in his 1944 arrangement ofthe Star Spangled Banner was quite

literally “banned in Boston.”

I’ Histoire du soldat (A Soldier’s Tale) is a theatrical work by the Swiss

writer Charles Ferdinand Ramuz (1878-1947) for which Stravinsky provided

the music. It is a parable about a soldier who trades his fiddle to the devil for

a book that predicts future economic gains. Originally it was scored for a

septet ofviolin, bass, clarinet, bassoon, cornet, trombone and percussion.

The story is told by a narrator and a character portrayed by a lead dancer

accompanied by a dance ensemble. The work was commissioned by the

Swiss philanthropist and amateur clarinetist Werner Reinhart, who underwrote the theatrical premiere and later funded a series of concerts which

included the trio version of L’ Histoire, arranged by Stravinsky for violin, 

clarinet, and piano. The trio version was premiered at the Theatre Municipal

de Lausanne on November 8,1919. Reinhart later founded a library of

Stravinsky’s work at his home in Winterthur, Switzerland.

The Petite Sweet Suite is a compilation that begins with popular songs

crafted during the same period when Chester Dale was forming his art collection (1919-1950). Bruno Nasta compiled the songs based on his personal

experience as an ad hoc violinist working with society bands performing at 

dance balls in New York City and Washington, DC. Some ofthe bands with

whom Nasta performed were the late twentieth-century manifestations of

bands that would have worked at society balls and parties attended by Chester

and Maud Dale—the Gene Donati Orchestra, the Lester Lanin Orchestra,

and the Meyer Davis Orchestra.

Composed by Euday L. Bowman in 1914, “Twelfth Street Rag” is considered one ofthe most popular rag compositions ofits era. Pee Wee Hunt’s

piano rendition was Billboard’s number one piano recording in 1948. It was 

also recorded throughout the years by Bowman and such greats as Donald

Peters, Louis Armstrong, and Lester Young. Charlie Chaplin used the tune

in his 1919 short film A Day's Pleasure.

Also composed in 1914, “That’s a Plenty” is an early Dixieland jazz

standard by Lew Pollack with lyrics by Ray Gilbert. In 1917 it was recorded

by Charles Adam Prince’s (1869-1937) band, and the New Orleans Rhythm

Kings recorded their version in 1923.

Danish violinist Jacob Thune Hansen Gade (1879-1963) was also a

composer of popular orchestral music. His best-known composition, Tango

Tzigane Jealousie or Tango Jealousie, was premiered in 1925. Written to

accompany a silent film while Gade was the bandleader for the Palads Cinema

in Copenhagen, it became an instant international hit and has been featured

in more than 100 films and records worldwide. The royalties he accrued

allowed Gade to establish a foundation, which has provided funding for 

the housing and education ofmusic students in Denmark ever since.

9
Cole Porter’s “I Love You” was written in 1944 for his stage musical

Mexican Hayride. Bing Crosby popularized it the same year, and many

crooners have recorded it since. The ensemble performs it tonight as a

beguine, a popular Latin dance form ofthe 1920s and 1930s.

As is the case for some ofthe tunes crafted and relocated and renamed

by the Gershwin Brothers, “The Man I Love” originally began life as “The 

Girl I Love” from the score ofthe government satire Lady Be Good. This

song was also included, then deleted, from Strike up the Band, an anti-war

satire (where it first appeared as “The Man I Love”) and the 1928 Ziegfeld

Follies hit Rosalie.

The “Farewell Polka” by Phillip Mathieu was originally composed in 1998

to honor his father Wilfred Mathieu. It was recorded on the album Life’s

Savings (1998) by Ruthie and the Wranglers. The ensemble showcases its

careful craftsmanship as a fitting closing to the Petite Sweet Suite, a collection ofsongs inspired by the Chester Dale collection.

Program Notes by Bruno Nasta

10

Upcoming concerts at the National Gallery ofArt

verge ensemble

Music by Schonberg 

and other composers

January 23, 2011

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Victor Goldberg, pianist

Music by Brahms, Mendelssohn,

Mozart, and Scriabin

January 30, 2011

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court