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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 ofArt

2,546th Concert

Paul Galbraith, guitarist

October 30, 2005

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
Program

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)

Baroque Keyboard Suite

Ouverture (K. 399)

Fugue (K. 153)

Allemande (K. 399)

Courante (K. 399)

Gigue (K. 574)

Frank Martin (1890-1974)

Quatre pieces breves

Prelude

Air

Plainte

Comme une gigue

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Ma mere I’oye (Mother Goose Suite) (1908-1910)

Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant (Pavane of Sleeping Beauty)

Petit poucet (Tom Thumb)

Laideronnette, imperatrice des pagodes

(Laideronnette, Empress ofthe Pagodes)

Les entretiens de la Belle et de la Bete

(Conversations between Beauty and the Beast)

Le jardin feerique (The Enchanted Garden)

INTERMISSION

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

French Suite no. 2, BWV 813 (1725)

Allemande

Courante

Sarabande

Air

Menuet

Gigue

Manuel Ponce (1882-1948)

Variations and Fugue on “La Folia”
The Musician

Lauded for his “exceptional artistry” by the New Yorker and for music making

described as “pure magic” by the Santa Barbara News-Press, Paul Galbraith

won the Silver Medal at the Segovia International Guitar Competition at age

seventeen. Andres Segovia, who was present, called his playing “magnificent.”

Galbraith’s guitar is equipped with two extra strings, one at the high end and

one at the low end. The instrument is supported by a metal end pin (similar 

to that of a cello), which rests on a wooden resonance box. Both the extraordinary design ofthe guitar and Galbraith’s unique playing style are considered

groundbreaking developments in the history ofthe instrument, increasing its

range to an unprecedented extent. Galbraith has specially arranged all ofthe

works on this program for performance on the eight-string guitar.

Galbraith has been featured twice on National Public Radio’s All Things

Considered and numerous times on Performance Today. He made his New

York debut at the Frick Collection in 2000, receiving a rave review in the

New York Times. In addition to frequent appearances throughout the United

States, Galbraith tours Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Germany,

Italy, Hungary, and the Netherlands as well as other countries. During the

Bach Year (2000) he was a guest artist at the Carmel (California), Denver,

Los Angeles, and Philadelphia festivals commemorating that composer.

Recent orchestral engagements in the United States include concertos 

with the Indianapolis Chamber Orchestra, the Knoxville Symphony, the Santa

Rosa Symphony, and the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra. In March 2003

Galbraith and the St. Petersburg String Quartet co-commissioned and gave

the world premiere of a new work, Rhapsodyfor Guitar and String Quartet,

by Georgian composer Zurab Nadarejshvili. Galbraith’s recording of his transcriptions ofthe violin sonatas of J. S. Bach was nominated for a Grammy

Award and chosen as one ofthe two best CDs of 1998 by Gramophone

Magazine. The recording also received a four-star rating in Stereo Review and

reached the “top ten” on Billboard’s classical charts. His most recent CDs,

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on the Delos label, are Bach Lute Suites; Paul Galbraith Plays Haydn (featuring

Galbraith’s arrangements offour keyboard sonatas); and In Every Lake the

Moon Shines Full, a collection offolk tunes from many countries.

Born in Scotland, Paul Galbraith has lived in Malawi, Greece, the

United Kingdom, and Brazil. He was a founding member ofthe Brazilian

Guitar Quartet, playing with them until the summer of 2003. His principal

teacher since 1983 has been the Greek conductor, pianist, and philosopher

George Hadjinikos. Galbraith appears at the National Gallery by arrangement with Lisa Sapinkopf Artists of Emeryville, California.

Program Notes

One does not usually think of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the quintessential classical composer, as a source of baroque dances, but in fact he wrote

a large number of pieces using the forms ofthe earlier period. In some

cases they appear in suites, such as number 399 in the catalogue compiled

by Ludwig Adolf Friedrich Kochel (1800-1877). In other cases the dances

survive as miscellaneous single pieces for which the context has been lost, 

such as the Fugue K. 153 and the Gigue K. 574. Five ofthese lovely anachronisms from Mozart’s pen have been assembled by Paul Galbraith to form

the suite with which this program begins.

Frank Martin was born in Geneva, Switzerland, the tenth and youngest

child of a clergyman and his wife. He played and improvised on the piano

even before he was old enough to go to school. A performance of Bach’s

St. Matthew Passion, which Martin first heard at age twelve, left a lasting

impression on him. His four-movement guitar suite, Quatre pieces breves,

follows Bach’s established model for keyboard and lute suites, but introduces a modern musical idiom to create a darker, more dissonant style.

The Prelude establishes this atmosphere immediately, and the rhythmically

active bass melody sounds clearly over the pedal tones emanating from

the open treble strings ofthe guitar. The delicate Air, a sarabande in all but

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name, provides a respite from the turbulence ofits companion movements

The Plainte, the emotional heart ofthe suite, features a haunting melody

accompanied by repeatedly strummed chords. The technically challenging

Comme une gigue, with two-against-three rhythms, ends this brief but

intriguing work, a gem ofthe twentieth-century guitar repertoire.

It is said that Maurice Ravel had the soul of a child who never left the

world offairy tales. He loved young people and was especially fond ofthe

daughters of close friends, Minnie and Jean Godebski, for whom he composed the Mother Goose Suite. In an autobiographical note he wrote, “The

idea of evoking in these pieces the poetry of childhood naturally led me to

simplify my style and to refine my means of expression.” Each piece refers

to one ofthe traditional Mother Goose stories:

1. Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant: This dance is performed as

the princess sleeps. The servants gracefully tiptoe around her

bed to protect her.

2. Petit poucet: Tom Thumb thinks he is clever as he drops a trail of

breadcrumbs in the woods so he can find his way home. But the 

birds outsmart him and eat them. As Tom wanders anxiously,

the birds, including the cuckoo, have the last laugh.

3. Laideronnette, imperatrice des pagodes: Cursed by a witch to endure

ugliness, Princess Laideronnette journeys to an enchanted island

inhabited by “pagodes” and “pagodines,” tiny beings made of

precious stones who play on nutshells as she bathes. A handsome

prince appears, and the curse is lifted. In this movement Ravel

borrows Javanese musical motifs.

4. Les entretiens de la Belle et de la Bete: The beast and a beautiful

princess dance a graceful waltz until the beast suddenly turns into

a prince “more handsome than Love.” The breathtaking transformation is symbolized by a startling musical metamorphosis.

5. Lejardin feerique: The enchanted garden comes from Ravel’s

imagination and provides a euphoric climax to the set. A hymnlike tune is played as a door opens to reveal a magic bower.

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The title page ofthe volume that contains J. S. Bach’s Suite no. 2, bwv 813,

includes the phrase, in Bach’s own hand, “Suites pour le clavecin.” This fact

prompted an early publisher to call it and the other works in the volume

“French suites.” Curiously, they are less related to French models than are the

so-called “English suites.” Nevertheless, elements of baroque French keyboard

music are present in this work, notably in the gorgeous opening Allemande in

style brise (broken style), in which melodic lines are subservient to the broken

chords, and in the final Gigue, with its characteristic dotted rhythms.

The legendary Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia wrote: “It would be

unfair to limit the beauty of [the guitar] to the mere accompaniment of

folksong and dances. The scope ofthe guitar has to be widened; music

of greater significance should be played on it.... In relation to other instruments, the guitar is what the lied is to the opera or a quartet to an orchestra.”

After his first successful concert in Paris, on April 7, 1924, Segovia began

asking composers from all over the world to write original and innovative

music for the guitar. In 1930 Segovia came across the theme known as La

Folia, thought to be of medieval Portuguese origin. It had been used in

sets of variations by composers from Corelli to Rachmaninoff. He wrote to 

Manuel Ponce (1882-1948), Mexico’s most famous composer ofthat era:

“Do not deny me the pleasure of composing a grand variational work on

this theme. In exchange ask for any sacrifice, but do not deny me this!”

Ponce’s response, Variations and Fugue on “La Folia,” has become a staple

in the twentieth-century guitar repertoire. In his congratulations to the

composer upon receiving the score, Segovia asserted: “The variations are

as beautiful as any in the Bach Chaconne [bwv 1004].” Ponce went on to

compose three other sets of variations for guitar, each demonstrating the

instrument’s range oftextures and idiomatic effects.

Program notes on the works by Martin, Ravel,

Bach, and Ponce by Paul Galbraith.