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Music Department

National Gallery of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, dc

Mailing address

2000B South Club Drive

Landover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

The Sixty-fourth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery of Art

2,548th Concert

Havard Gimse, pianist

November 13, 2005

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
Program

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

Sonata in C Major, Hob. XVI: 50 (1794)

Allegro

Adagio

Allegro molto

Cesar Franck (1822-1890)

Prelude, Fugue, and Variation, op. 18

Norwegian Miniatures

Edvard Grieg (1843-1907): March ofthe Trolls, op. 54, no. 3

Geirr Tveitt (1908-1981): Landeleik Tune, op. 150, no. 27

Alf Hurum (1882-1972): Miniature, op. 52

Sverre Bergh (1915-1980): Norwegian Dance no. 2

Harald Saeverud (1897-1992): Ballad of Revolt, op. 22, no. 5

INTERMISSION

Frederic Chopin (1810-1949)

Four Scherzi

Scherzo no. 1 in B Minor, op. 20

Scherzo no. 3 in C-shanp Minor, op. 39

Scherzo no. 4 in E Major, op. 54

Scherzo no. 2 in B Minor, op. 31

The Musician

A native of Kongsvinger, Norway, Havard Gimse has established himself as

a leading Scandinavian pianist. He studied with Hans Leygraf at Berlin’s

Hochschule der Kunste and with Jiri Hlinka in Norway. Since winning the

^87 Jugend Musiziert competition in Germany, Gimse has gone on to 

win the Steinway Prize (1995), the prestigious Grieg Prize (1996), and the

Norwegian Society’s Sibelius Prize (2004). Known for his distinct musical

palette and broad repertoire, Gimse has performed recitals throughout

Europe, the United States, and Latin America, and has been a concerto

soloist with the Baltimore Symphony, the Royal Philharmonic, the Royal

Liverpool Philharmonic, the bbc Welsh National Symphony, and the

Belgian National Philharmonic Orchestra, among others. He has performed

at the Valdemossa Chopin Festival and the festivals of Edinburgh, Bath,

Schleswig-Holstein, and Oslo. He is the assistant program manager ofthe

Oslo Chamber Festival.

Gimse is one of Norway’s most prolific recording artists. He has more

than thirty CDs to his credit, many of which garnered recommendations in

the Penguin Guide, Gramophone, CD Review, BBC Music Magazine, and Phono

Forum. He performs at the National Gallery for the second time, having

played here to great acclaim in 2001, and appears by arrangement with

ProArte International Management of Bergen, Norway.

3
Program Notes

Joseph Haydn’s piano sonatas span a period of almost four decades and culminate with the three sonatas he wrote in 1794, during his second trip to

London. He wrote them for a concert pianist, Terese Jansen; Haydn was a

witness for her wedding to the engraver Francesco Bartolozzi (1727-1815).

The first movement ofthe Sonata in C Major opens with a striking staccato

main theme and a melodious second theme, which Haydn treats with prolific

variations. The complex harmonies and mysterious turns ofthe first movement, the dramatic, solemn octave passages in the second movement, and 

the unabashed scherzo character ofthe third movement support the claim

that some ofthe romantic innovations for which Beethoven is credited were

already present in the music of his teacher, Haydn.

Although best known as an organist and composer for that instrument,

Cesar Franck was equally at home with the piano and transcribed many 

of his own works for it. He first composed the Prelude, Fugue, and Variation,

op. 18, as a piano-organ duet for two of his pupils, Louise and Genevieve

Deslignieres. Later he produced versions for piano solo and organ solo.

In the Prelude, the soaring melody in the style of a barcarolle holds the 

listener’s interest. A briefinterlude, marked lento, unveils the head of

the fugue theme. This is followed by the fugue itself, which unfolds in a

leisurely tempo (allegretto ma non troppo) and builds to a convincing

stretto climax without ever losing its lyrical quality. The Variation is actually

a repeat ofthe prelude with arabesques in the left-hand accompaniment.

These present a special challenge when the work is played as a piano solo:

in the version for organ and piano, the bass line and the arabesques are

divided between the pianist’s left and right hands while the organist plays

the melody, but in the piano solo version, the left hand must take on

both the arabesques and the bass while the right hand plays the melody.

4

Edvard Grieg wrote many short pieces for piano, often built on Norwegian folk tunes and dances, and during his lifetime came to be known

as “the Chopin ofthe North.” He was born in Bergen, the descendant of

a Scotsman who spelled the family name “Greig.” Grieg’s mother,

Gesine, was his first piano teacher. His talent was noted by the legendary 

Norwegian violinist Ole Bull (1810-1880), who was Gesine’s brother-inlaw. Bull persuaded Edvard’s parents to send him to the conservatory in

Leipzig, Germany, which at that time vied with the Paris Conservatory as

the prime music school in Europe. After completing his studies, Grieg went

for three years to Copenhagen, where he continued to develop his skills

as a composer in the international style. There he met a fellow Norwegian

composer, Rikard Nordraalc (1842-1866), who inspired in Grieg an enthusiasm for Norwegian folk music and romantic nationalism that changed his

life. Grieg returned to Norway in 1866, founded the Norwegian Academy

of Music, and lived the rest of his life in a house near Bergen that he

named Troldhaugen. He died in 1907, at age sixty-four, and his funeral

was honored by thousands of Norwegians who stood in the streets of his 

home town as the procession passed.

Like Edvard Grieg, Geirr Tveitt was born in Bergen and studied in

Leipzig. He also studied in Paris under Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959).

Tveitt was a dedicated collector and arranger of folk music from the region 

along the Hardanger Fjord in western Norway. Misfortune was no stranger

to Tveitt. His hand-built studio overlooking the Hardanger Fjord was

destroyed by snow in i960, and his house burned to the ground in 1970,

incinerating almost 80 percent of his notes and scores. An unusual feature

of his musical output is that much of it is built on the Lydian, Dorian, and

other modes, rather than classical major and minor tonalities.

5
The earliest serious representative of musical impressionism in Norway

was Alf Hurum. In his Exotic Suite of 1918, the impressionist influence is

conspicuous. Other noteworthy works include an orchestral tone poem, two

sonatas for violin and piano, and a string quartet. Hurum left Norway in

1924 and spent most ofthe rest of his life in Hawaii, where he founded the

Honolulu Symphony Orchestra and served as its conductor from 1924 to

1926. Versatile as well in areas other than music, Hurum worked in the last

part of his life chiefly as a painter.

Sverre Bergh was born in Hamar, a town north of Oslo. From 1935 to

1937 he studied music theory with the Norwegian composer Fartein Valen

(1887-1952) and with other teachers in Vienna. From 1937 to 1946 Bergh

worked as a free-lance musician and conductor at various theaters, the most

important of which was the National Theater of Bergen. He arranged and 

composed a great deal of music for the stage, movies, radio, and television,

and his name is today closely linked to musical theater. His compositions

are mostly in neoclassical style and are marked by a generous supply of

humor. At the time of his death in 1980, he was the director ofthe Bergen

International Festival.

Like many of his fellow Norwegians, Harald Saeverud was deeply affected

by the plight of his country in World War 11. In his fury, he composed what 

many consider to be his best work, Kjempeviseslatten (Ballad of Revolt).

The work is strong and clear, with intense rhythms that evoke heartbeats.

Saeverud also grew up in Bergen, where from 1915 to 1918 he studied at the 

Academy of Music. Later he continued his studies at the Academy of Music

in Berlin. Saeverud wrote mostly orchestral music, but from the 1930s on 

he also wrote for the piano. During the same decade, he became one of

the leading figures ofthe cultural life of Norway, and from 1939 to 1954 he 

was a member ofthe Norwegian branch ofthe International Society for

Contemporary Music. After Saeverud’s death in 1992, part of his home at

Siljustolen in Bergen was made into a museum.

6

In the second half of this program, Havard Gimse provides the listener

with a rare opportunity to hear in one sitting all four ofthe scherzi that

Chopin wrote as independent compositions. These works have been the

favorites of many pianists since Chopin’s time, including Camille SaintSaens (1835-1921), who wrote that the Scherzo op. 54 was his favorite work

for the piano. In Chopin’s hands, the scherzo was transformed from a lighthearted movement within a sonata or a symphony to a towering tragic

poem that explores tribulations and conflicts with sometimes tragic, sometimes triumphant resolutions. Chopin usually pays respect to the traditional

scherzo form by presenting two contrasting themes and restating each

before moving to a section that presents a different color, texture, and key

from that ofthe opening themes. As he approaches the end ofthis second 

section, which corresponds to the trio of a more traditional scherzo, Chopin

takes liberties with the form, introducing improvisatory elements, embellished repetitions, or fresh interludes. As in the traditional scherzo, there is

a return to the opening themes after the trio, but these are almost always

interrupted by a dramatic surprise before the scherzo finishes with a coda.