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.

Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

www.nga.gov

The Sixty-ninth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,801st Concert

Trio con Brio Copenhagen

Jens Elvekjaer, piano

Soo-Jin Hong, violin

Soo-Kyung Hong, cello

October 20, 2010

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Admissionfree
Program

Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921)

Piano Trio no. 1 in F Major, op. 18 (1863)

Allegro vivace

Andante

Scherzo

Allegro

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Piano Trio (1914)

Modere

Pantoum—Assez vif

Passacaille—Tres large 

Final—Anime

The Musicians

There are times when two plus two can equal three. Trio con Brio Copenhagen is one such instance, where family ties, cultural blending, and musical

connections all converge to color, shape, and energize their concerts. Korean

sisters Soo-Jin and Soo-Kyung Hong and Danish pianist Jens Elvekjaer formed

the trio in 1999 with the concept ofpairs coming together. The sisters had

played together since childhood, and Jens Elvekjaer and Soo-Kyung Hong

(who are now married) had played piano and cello duos together for years.

In 2005 Trio con Brio Copenhagen was the recipient ofthe KalichsteinLaredo-Robinson International Trio Award. The biennial award included

appearances on twenty major concert series across the United States and

introduced the piano trio to American audiences. The Trio first garnered

international attention when they won the top prize at Germany’s ardMunich Competition in 2002. Other awards include first prize in the

Danish Radio Competition, Italy’s Premio Vittorio Gui (Florence), and

Norway’s Trondheim Chamber Music Competition. The ensemble also 

won the “Allianz Prize” for Best Ensemble in Germany’s Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern; second prize in the Vienna Haydn Competition;

and the Premio Trio di Trieste in Italy.

Trio con Brio Copenhagen has performed in Asia, Europe, and the United

States, including performances at Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Berlin’s

Konzerthaus, Bonn’s Beethoven-Haus, Copenhagen’s Tivoli Concert Hall,

Hamburg’s Musikhalle, Korea’s Seoul and Sejong Arts Centers, Munich’s

Herkulessal, New York’s Avery Fisher and Carnegie Halls, Norway’s Bergen 

and Trondheim Chamber Music Festivals, Salzburg’s Mozarteum, Sweden’s

Bastad Chamber Music Festival, Tokyo’s Bunka Kaikan, Vicenza’s Teatro

Olimpico, and Vienna’s Mozart-Saal.

Trio con Brio Copenhagen performed the complete Beethoven piano

trios in a cycle ofthree concerts at the Tivoli Concert Hall in Copenhagen

with great success. The Trio has been heard on the bbc, Danish Radio,

European Broadcasting Union, Korean Broadcasting Systems, Norwegian

Radio, Swedish Radio, Radiotelevisione Italiana, and on the major German

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networks (ard, ndr, Hessischer Rundfunk and Radio Berlin). Trio con Brio

Copenhagen has released three cds. Their first release, on the Kaba label,

features Beethoven’s “Ghost” Trio and the Shostakovich Trio no. 2; their next

release, on the Azica label, includes works by Bloch, Dvorak, and Ravel; and

their latest, a Marquis release, is of Mendelssohn’s Piano Trios nos. 1 and 2.

Soo-Jin Hong plays a violin built by Andrea Guarneri in the seventeenth

century; Soo-Kyung Hong plays a Testore cello from 1731; and Jens Elvekjaer

is the first Steinway Artist from Denmark. Trio con Brio Copenhagen

appears at the National Gallery by arrangement with Lisa SapinkopfArtists

of Emeryville, California. More information is available at www.trioconhrio.dk.

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Program Notes

During the third quarter ofthe nineteenth century, when the French only

seemed interested in opera, Camille Saint-Saens almost single-handedly

attempted to make the case for chamber music, which so many ofhis countrymen continued to think of as something German. Although famous for his

larger orchestral works and concertos, he devoted a great deal oftime and

effort to writing chamber music. In addition to his two string quartets, he

composed three works for piano trio; a serenade for piano, organ, violin, and

viola (or cello); a piano quintet; Caprice on Danish and Russian Aires for piano,

flute, oboe, and B-flat clarinet; and his Septet for piano, trumpet, two violins,

viola, cello, and bass. Although the Piano Trio no. 1 is a relatively early work,

by the time he wrote it Saint-Saens had already composed his piano quintet,

a piano trio suite, and a serenade for violin, viola, and organ.

The well-respected critic, Emile Baumann, wrote:

The First Piano Trio is one ofthe most inspired moments of his

youth. The opening theme ofthe first movement, Allegro vivace,

expresses the joy of adventure. Its alluring gaiety communicates 

itselfto the cello and permeates passages that are heavy with

foreboding as well as those that are buoyant. The following

Andante is a model of plastic and expressive melody. The main

theme unfolds like an ancient ballad while the conclusion is filled

with an intimate tenderness. The sprightly third movement,

Scherzo, is filled with humor and wonderful cross rhythms and

pizzicato effects. Much ofthe same buoyant spirit ofthe first

movement is also to be found in the boisterous finale, Allegro.

According to the composer, the spirit of Piano Trio no. 1 stands

in stark contrast to that of Piano Trio no. 2. He wrote: “I am working quietly

away at a trio which I hope will drive to despair all those unlucky enough to

hear it.”

By 1914 Ravel had already been toying with the idea ofwriting a piano

trio for some eight years and is even reported to have said to his friend and

pupil Maurice Delage: “I’ve written my trio. Now all I need are the themes.”

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But in an autobiographical note he dictated in 1928 his only comment on

the completed work was that it was “Basque in coloring.” This puzzled

commentators until, some years after Ravel’s death, the opening theme

ofthe first movement was discovered among sketches for his unfinished

work for piano and orchestra Zaspiak Bat (“The Seven Provinces”), based

on Basque themes.

The first movement is in sonata form, but inevitably Ravel introduces

his own modifications, as with the second theme, which appears unconventionally in the tonic A minor. In the development, Ravel builds up tension by

means of continually fluctuating tempi, while at the reprise the first theme

on the piano is reduced to its 3+2+3 rhythm in order to accommodate the

simultaneous presentation ofthe second theme on the strings. It is worth

noting that Ravel spoke admiringly ofthe reprise in the first movement of

Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, likewise disguised. In the matter ofinstrumental balance, Ravel frequently doubles violin and cello at a distance oftwo

octaves, placing the right hand ofthe piano between them.

The title ofthe second movement, Pantoum, is derived from a Malay verse

form, imitated by Hugo, Gautier, and Baudelaire among others, in which the

second and fourth lines ofeach quatrain become the first and third lines ofthe

next. For years it was rather casually assumed that in adopting this title Ravel

was merely indulging vague, exotic inclinations. But nothing about Ravel’s composing was ever vague. In 1975 the British scholar Brian Newbould proved that

Ravel does in fact adhere closely to the structure outlined above and, what is

more, observes a further requirement ofthe original form—that the poem

(or movement) deal with two separate ideas pursued in parallel, in this case,

the brittle opening theme on the piano and the subsequent smoother one on 

strings two octaves apart. Each ofthese themes thus has a real continuation

(which we hear in performance) and a notional one (which is unheard but

provided the composer a private satisfaction).

These exigencies would be enough to keep most composers occupied,

but Ravel goes one step further and superimposes these games on a traditional aba form, whose middle section is in a different meter. It could be

that he was trying to outdo Debussy, who had set Baudelaire’s pantoum

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“Harmonie du soir” in 1889. But at any rate this extraordinarily intricate

structure lends some credence to his remark about only needing the themes.

In contrast to the whirling motion ofthe Pantoum, the Passacaille that

follows is obsessively linear—eleven statements of an eight-bar phrase,

rising to a climax and then receding again. Even more than the Pantoum,

this movement is a tribute to the teaching ofAndre Gedalge, to whom the

work is dedicated, and to whom Ravel was ever grateful for his technical

advice. In the last movement, the alternation of 5/4 and 7/4 bars returns

to the metric instability ofthe first movement, but the structure is even

more firmly that ofsonata form with a second theme in the shape ofmassive piano chords. Ravel’s work on this movement coincided with the

declaration ofwar in August 1914, which may possibly explain the trumpet

calls in the development. Typically, he wrote offthis work, in which his

technical mastery is seen in all its dazzling perfection, as “just another trio.”

That disclaimer was, however, to some extent for public consumption.

In his heart, Ravel was passionate about compositional technique and about

his role in its progress. To close friends he would occasionally confide: “Well,

you know, nobody has ever done that before!”

Program notes by Lisa Sapinkopf

Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

Great Noise Ensemble

Armando Bayolo, conductor

Music by Louis Andriessen

October 24, 2010

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

East Building Atrium