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.

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

Mailing address

2000B South Club Drive

Landover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

cover: Antoine Watteau, Two Studies ofa Violinist Tuning His Instrument (detail),

1717-1718, National Gallery of Art, Washington, Gift of Howard Sturges

The Sixty-eighth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell

and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,743rd Concert

Masques

Sophie Gent, baroque violin

Tuomo Suni, baroque violin

Kathleen Kajioka, baroque viola

Melisande Corriveau, bass viol

Pierre-Yves Martel, violone

Olivier Fortin, harpsichord and leader

Presented in honor of

Renaissance to Revolution:

French Drawingsfrom the

National Gallery ofArt, 1300-1800

October 28, 2009

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Admissionfree
Program

Francois Couperin (1668-1733)

Huitieme Concert dans le gout theatral (from Les Gouts reunis, 1724)

Ouverture

Grande Ritournele 

Air Noblement 

Air tendre-rondeau

Air anime et leger

Loure

Sarabande 

Air-leger

Air tendre -Lentement

Air de Baccantes-tres anime

Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764)

Premier Concert (from Pieces de clavecin en concerts, 1741)

La Coulicam

La Livri

Le Vezinet

Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643-1704)

Concert a quatre parties, H. 545

Prelude 

Allemande 

Sarabande 

Gigue anglaise 

Gigue franchise

Passacaille

Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687)

From Amadis (1684)

Chaconne

The Musicians

Founded in 1998, Masques is a Montreal-based early music ensemble that

performs music ofthe seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The name of

the ensemble is inspired by the masques of Elizabethan England—performances that fused poetry, music, dance, and drama. Comprised ofsome of

the most talented young Canadian musicians, Masques collaborates regularly with up-and-coming European talents, thereby maintaining close ties

with musicians of diverse backgrounds. The members of Masques regularly 

perform as soloists and chamber musicians throughout Canada, Europe,

and the United States with such ensembles as Capriccio Stravagante, La

Petite Bande, Tafelmusik, and Les Voix Humaines.

During the summer of 2009, Masques performed Purcell’s Dido and

Aeneas at Festival Domaine Forget. Throughout the current season they will

appear in Montreal at the Festival Orgue et Couleurs, at the Chapelle NotreDame-De-Bon-Secours, and in Laval, Quebec. The ensemble is currently on 

tour throughout North America. In addition to its concert at the National

Gallery ofArt, it will appear at The Frick Collection in New York City, with 

the Renaissance and Baroque Society of Pittsburgh, and in the University of

Vermont’s Lane Series. Masques records exclusively for atma Classique and

appears at the National Gallery by arrangement with Colbert Artists Management of New York City.

Olivier Fortin, the harpsichordist and leader of Masques, began studying 

the harpsichord at age eight. In 1995 he graduated with distinction from the 

Conservatoire de Musique de Quebec, and continued his training with Dom

Andre Laberge. Fortin received scholarships for studies in Paris with Pierre 

Hantai and in Amsterdam with Bob van Asperen. In 1997 he was awarded 

top prizes at the Montreal Bach Competition and the Bruges Festival. He

teaches harpsichord and chamber music at the Conservatoire de Musique 

de Quebec.

3
Melisande Corriveau, who plays the cello, bass viol, and recorder in the

ensemble, received her undergraduate degree in recorder at the University

of Montreal as a student of Francis Colpron. Her studies also included the

baroque cello, and she recently earned a master ofmusic degree in viola da

gamba under Margaret Little at Montreal University. She also studied modern

cello with Denis Brott at the Montreal Conservatory of Music. Corriveau can

be heard on Radio-Canada/CBC, and has recorded several CDs with atma,

Analekta, and xxi records.

Violinist Sophie Gent was born in Perth, Western Australia. There, she

completed initial studies with Paul Wright, then pursued training at the Royal

Conservatory in the Hague with Ryo Terakado. Gent is now a performer with

ensembles such as Capriccio Stravagante, 11 Gardellino, and the Ricercar

Consort as well as the string quartet Mito Dell’arco, based in Japan. She is

regularly invited to Australia to perform in various chamber music festivals 

and ensembles.

Based in Toronto, violist Kathleen Kajioka is involved in both the classical 

music establishment and the world music scene, performing early music,

new music, and pop. She performs in the Halifax Jazz Festival and the

Victoria Summer Chamber Music Festival and tours internationally in the

United States and Europe. Kajioka collaborated with composer/choreographer Peter Chin in Stupa, which won the 2006 Dora Award from the Toronto 

Alliance for the Performing Arts, and with the Montreal-based Quatuor

Bozzini. She has also studied Middle Eastern violin, and performs with

Maryem Tollar, Maza Meze, and the Arabesque Orchestra.

Pierre-Yves Martel, who plays the violone for Masques, continues to

redefine himself as a musician. Equally active in the fields ofimprovisation

and early music, he now dedicates himself, after years ofstudying the double

bass and composition, to the viola da gamba and the violone. Since 2006

Martel has released three albums as an improviser under the Ambiances

Magnetiques/DAME label. Engagement e[ Confrontation, is a recording ofimprovisations for solo prepared double bass; Quartetski Does Prokofiev, features

his arrangements of Sergei Prokofiev’s Visionsfugitives; and Lauzier-MartelMyhr-Tetrault, is a collection of unique soundscapes produced using turn

tables, bass clarinet, prepared guitar, and viola da gamba.

4

Tuomo Suni began to play the violin at age four. In 1996 he began specializing in the baroque violin, studying with Kreeta-Maria Kentala. Between 1999 

and 2005 he furthered his studies with Enrico Gatti at the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. Suni graduated with a bachelor ofmusic degree in 2003,

completed his master’s degree in 2005, and is now based in London. He is a

member of Opera Quarta, which won the Van Wassenaer Concours and the

Premio Bonporti in 2002. Opera Quarta’s CD oftrio sonatas by Jean-Marie

LeClair, released by French National Radio in 2007, was awarded the prestigious Diapason d’or.

Program Notes

The National Gallery’s outstanding collection of French old master drawings

represents in remarkable richness and breadth the history of French draftsmanship before 1800. Individual works have been included in exhibitions

at the Gallery and elsewhere, but the heart ofthe collection as a whole, now

augmented with numerous important recent acquisitions, has not been

showcased in a special exhibition until the recent opening of Renaissance

to Revolution: French Drawingsfrom the National Gallery ofArt, 1500-1800.

The exhibition’s approximately 120 drawings were made over a period of

three centuries by the best French artists working at home and abroad and

by foreign artists working in France. Among the key artists are Francois

Boucher, Benvenuto Cellini, Jean-Honore Fragonard, Claude Lorrain, and

Antoine Watteau. Their works celebrate the singular originality, elegance,

and spirit of French draftsmanship and the refinement of French artistic life

in general. The exhibition remains on view until January 31, 2010.

This concert is the first offour that will feature French music from the

same three centuries that are covered by the exhibition. It focuses on the

remarkable development ofinstrumental music in France in the seventeenth

century. During this time the territorial unity sought by the kings of France

was accompanied by a desire for political, administrative and cultural centralism in which music played an important part. Louis xm and Louis xiv

introduced musical genres such as opera and the grand motet, both ofwhich

5
required large numbers of performers. The finest musical talents in the

kingdom were summoned to Paris and Versailles to participate in the development of a national art.

There was a tendency in this context for French music to become isolated

and parochial, but this was offset to some extent by the curiosity and admiration that French composers had for Italian music. The Italian model is

mentioned in the first royal decree ofprivilege granted to the French opera,

and while Louis xiv and Lully discouraged court musicians from going to

Italy to study, Italian influence could be discerned in the work ofmost French

composers. Some, like Francois Couperin, claimed to have created a hybrid

French-Italian style in the form of Les Gouts reunis (reunited styles). French

music ofthis period is distinguished from all other European national styles 

by the prevalence of dotted rhythms, most ofwhich were not actually written

out. The tradition of notes inegales (unequal notes) was passed on from teacher

to student until the time ofthe French Revolution, when it disappeared almost

overnight. It was not rediscovered until the mid-twentieth century, when

musicologists were stimulated by a passing reference in a treatise written in

1716 by Francois Couperin— “.. .nous ecrivons differement que nous executons... ” (We write [music] differently from the way we play it) (L’Art de toucher

le clavecin [The Art of Playing the Harpsichord]).

The genre in French baroque music that perhaps bears the closest

resemblance to drawings is the piece de clavecin, exemplified by the pieces

by Rameau on this program. Short in duration and economical in their

motivic development and counterpoint, these pieces have as their inspiration

a fleeting emotion, a whimsical idea, or a unique personality, and carry a

corresponding title. Rameau and the other composers who produced them

were most likely able to improvise such pieces on the spot, a process not

unlike a quick sketch with a pen or a brush.

Program notes by Stephen Ackert

6

Upcoming Concerts at the National Gallery of Art

Till Fellner, pianist

Beethoven Piano Sonatas

November 1, 2009

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Pro Musica Rara

Music by Marais, Rameau, and Telemann

November 4, 2009

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Presented in honor of

Renaissance to Revolution: French Drawings

from the National Gallery ofArt, 1500-1800