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-third Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery of Art

2,528th Concert

Orchestre de Chambre Fran^ais

Brian Suits, conductor

with Kyung Sun Lee, violinist

Presented in honor of

Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre

March 20, 2005

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
For the convenience of concertgoers

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:oo pm.

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 after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

Program

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Petite suite (1889)

(Arranged by Brian Suits)

En bateau

Cortege

Menuet

Ballet

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Pavane pour une infante defunte (1899)

(Arranged by Christian Raverdel)

Benjamin Godard (1849-1895)

Canzonetta from Concerto romantique op. 35 (1876)

Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921)

Romance in C Major op. 48 (1876)

(Arranged by Christian Raverdel)

INTERMISSION

Guillaume Lelceu (1870-1894)

Adagio for Strings in C minor (Lesfleurs pales du souvenir) (1891)

(Arranged by Christian Raverdel)

Debussy

La file aux cheveux de lin (1882)

(Arranged by Christian Raverdel)

Saint-Saens

Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso op. 28 (1870)
The Musicians

ORCHESTRE DE CHAMBRE FRAN^AIS

Acclaimed as one of France’s best chamber orchestras, the Orchestre de

Chambre Fran^ais is based in the city of Senlis, about forty kilometers north

of Paris. Many ofthe musicians are ardent string quartet players and bring

to the ensemble the energy, technique, and attentiveness to other players 

that chamber music requires. Heard frequently in Paris, the orchestra has

appeared in the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, the Palais de Congres, and the

Eglise de Saint-Germain-des-Pres. The orchestra has performed with such

illustrious French soloists as trumpeter Maurice Andre, pianist Jean-Claude

Pennetier, and cellist Raphael Pidoux. The ensemble has to its credit concert

tours of France, Switzerland, Holland, and Italy, and has received special 

acclaim in Spain, where it returns regularly to the Santander International

Festival, the Montserrat International Music Week, and the international

festivals of Palencia and Gandia.

BRIAN SUITS

In addition to his work with the Orchestre de Chambre Fran^ais, Brian Suits

is extremely active as a guest conductor, having directed most recently

the Prime Philharmonic and SangRolc symphony orchestras in Korea, the

Cadenza Chamber Orchestra, and the 21 Chamber Players. Suits is often 

engaged as a pianist in collaboration with other musicians and as a composer. 

His works run the gamut from Concertpiece for violin and orchestra (2002),

Romance for violin and orchestra (2004), and a piano concerto (2003), to

jazz and popular songs. He has produced many arrangements, among them

a treatment of George Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm that met with great success

when it was recently premiered in Cleveland by Kyung Sun Lee. Brian Suits

was a member ofthe faculty ofthe Yale School of Music from 1990 to 2002.

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KYUNG SUN LEE

A prize winner in the 1994 Tchaikovsky Competition, a bronze medalist

in the 1993 Queen Elisabeth of Belgium Competition, and a first prize

winner ofthe Washington and D’Angelo International Competitions, violinist Kyung Sun Lee has enjoyed ever-increasing popularity as a performer.

Enthusiastic critical praise of her playing extols its “exceptional tonal suavity 

and expressive intensity in equal measure” (Strad magazine) and “fluidity

and grace; pathos and emotion” (Palm Beach Post). In great demand as

a soloist, Kyung Sun Lee is also a member ofthe Oberlin String Quartet,

with which she will tour the United States West Coast in early 2005. Lee

records and performs nationwide with her husband, pianist Brian Suits, 

as well as with pianist HaeSun Paik, the KumHo/Asiana String Quartet,

German pianist Peter Schindler, guitarist Sung-Ho Chang, and soprano

Jennifer Aylmer. A graduate of Seoul National University and the Peabody 

Conservatory, Kyung Sun Lee also attended the Juilliard School in the

professional studies program. Her teachers have included Nam Yun Kim,

Sylvia Rosenberg, Robert Mann, Dorothy DeLay, and Hyo Kang. She plays 

a Joseph Guarnerius violin made in 1723.

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The Exhibition

Toulouse-Lautrec and Montmartre, which opened today in the East Building of

the National Gallery, focuses on artists’ fascination with the decadent spirit

and glamour of bohemian life in the Parisian district of Montmartre at the

turn ofthe twentieth century. More than 250 works, primarily by Henri de

Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901), include paintings, drawings, posters, prints,

sculptures, zinc silhouettes from the Chat Noir cabaret, and printed matter,

such as illustrated invitations, song sheets, advertisements, and admission

tickets. Themes ofthe exhibition include dance halls, cafes-concerts, and 

cabarets (featuring a section devoted to the Chat Noir); entertainment stars,

including singers Aristide Bruant and Yvette Guilbert; and song and dance 

performers Jane Avril, May Belfort, May Milton, Loie Fuller, and Marcelle

Lender. The artist loved the music and entertainment these performers provided and enjoyed a close personal relationship with several ofthem.

Among the works by contemporaries of Toulouse-Lautrec that are

included in the exhibition is Erik Satie (El bohemio; Poet ofMontmartre),

1891, by Ramon Casas. It was in the early 1890s that the painting’s composer subject, shown impeccably attired and casting a quizzical sideways

glance at the viewer, began frequenting Montmartre in the company of

his close friend, the poet Contamine de Latour. The two men took up lodgings there, but neither could afford the gentlemanly lifestyle to which Satie

was accustomed. Eventually he exhausted his resources and, to make ends

meet, began to play regularly in the cafes-concerts, an uncomfortable fit

for a composer whose aspirations were formed in the Paris Conservatoire. 

Satie’s bohemian lifestyle continued until 1905, when French publishers

and audiences, influenced to a great extent by Debussy and Ravel’s enthusiasm for his work, were finally ready to accept his iconoclastic music.

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Program Notes

The Petite suite of Claude Debussy began life as one of several successful 

compositions for piano four hands, others including the Danse and the 

Marche ecossaise. The work is in the charming style of the young Debussy,

who had not yet begun to adopt those musical devices—whole-tone scales,

chords moving in parallel motion, and a lessened emphasis on melody—

by which future scholars would identify him as an impressionist. Rather,

we are treated to the delightful and charming language ofthe French

romantics, enhanced by Debussy’s own exquisite taste and unwillingness

to indulge in excessive sentimentality. Debussy’s friend, Henri-Paul Busser,

arranged the work for full orchestra. I made this string arrangement from

the original four-hand piano version, but borrowed an idea or two from 

the excellent Busser.

Composed when Ravel was twenty-four, Pavane pour une infante defunte

(Pavane for a Dead Princess) is the most familiar of his works. The composer 

professed not to care particularly for the work; nonetheless, he orchestrated it

and performed it frequently, both on piano and as a conductor, for the rest 

of his life. The Pavane is so heartbreakingly appealing, it is really of no consequence whether Ravel cared for it or not.

Benjamin Godard, a rather successful and popular composer in his 

day, has been virtually forgotten in our time. Many have speculated on the

reasons for this, citing his failure as a composer of opera (which has not,

however, hampered the musical legacy of certain other composers), or

noting the relative “lightness,” in an emotional sense, of his output. It is

probably most accurate to say that, while he was skilled at writing melody

and had a developed sense of harmony, his sense of musical proportion

was lacking. He seems to have had an Achilles heel where endings are concerned, and he wrote in a somewhat antiquated style, compared to the 

standards of his contemporaries. Godard’s output, while admittedly spotty,

contains quite a few works worthy of hearing, over and above the famous

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Berceuse from Jocelyn. Among these is the Concerto romantique, from which 

the Canzonetta movement is the most famous. Insouciant in the best sense, 

the solo violin dances lightly over an accompaniment of plucked strings. The 

arrangement for string orchestra differs in only one minor way from the 

original: two small woodwind parts were given to the concertmaster to play.

Camille Saint-Saens, the elder statesman of French romantic music, not

only composed more than three hundred works, but was also a playwright,

poet, philosopher, and essayist; he authored a book on Roman archaeology,

treatises on ancient music, and several papers on astronomy. Saint-Saens

was not a tormented soul, as the world expects of its composers; rather

he composed, as he put it, “as an apple tree produces apples.” He was a

natural melodist, and so sure in his craft that music flowed from his pen

with seeming effortlessness. Therefore, he may not have taken exception,

had he been aware of it, to one famous commentator’s remark that he was

“the only great composer who was not a genius”: an apt description, if we

define genius as that quality that propels art from one period to the next.

Even in light ofthis caveat, Saint-Saens’ contributions to the repertoire were 

prodigious. His Romance, less frequently tasted than many of his musical

“apples,” is typically delightful. The charming main theme alternates with 

quicker sections, with predictably pleasing results.

One might not make a more stark contrast between the lives oftwo

composers than those of Saint-Saens and the Walloon composer Guillaume

Lekeu. Saint-Saens lived to a very old age; Lekeu died in his early twenties. 

The name of Saint-Saens is familiar to virtually every music lover; that

of Lekeu is almost unknown. Saint-Saens composed happily and with ease,

and his music tends to be light and breezy, while Lekeu represents the 

embodiment ofthe tortured creative spirit, and his works are brooding. His

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Adagiofor Strings, subtitled “the pale flowers ofremembrance,” presents the

expressive chaos, complete harmony, sweetest phrase, and heartbreak of

the artist. Above all, it represents the struggle to unite these disparate parts

into a cohesive whole. The excellent arrangement by Christian Raverdel

(director ofthe Orchestre de Chambre Francais) is divided into eleven parts—

ten ensemble parts plus a solo violin.

Contemporary listeners who are familiar with piano music know La file

aux cheveux de lin (The Girl with the Flaxen Hair) as the eighth of Debussy’s

Preludesfor Piano, Book I, composed in 1910. It was also the title of an 

unpublished song, based on a poem of Leconte de Lisle, that Debussy composed in 1882. It is worth noting that, in the publication ofthe Preludesfor

Piano, Debussy specified that the titles be placed in parentheses at the

end ofthe music—thereby putting the focus squarely on the music itself,

and not on any preconceived associations called to mind by the titles.

During his lifetime, Saint-Saens enjoyed stature not only as a composer,

but also as a virtuoso pianist. The early 1860s were some ofthe happiest

years ofhis life, for he concertized frequently and successfully. Living at 

home with his mother and his great aunt, he was pampered shamelessly.

The Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso op. 28 dates from these halcyon days,

undoubtedly accounting in some part for the work’s infectious exuberance. It

was composed in 1863 for Pablo de Sarasate, the Spanish violinist and wunderkind. Sarasate was as much of a child prodigy as Saint-Saens had been,

and at age fifteen he was already commissioning leading composers to write

works for him. The first composer he approached was Saint-Saens who, in

1859, composed his Concerto No. 1 in A major for Sarasate. Four years later,

Saint-Saens wrote the Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, and Sarasate performed it for the first time in Paris on April 4, 1867. The work contains

many Spanish elements; undoubtedly Saint-Saens was delighted to write for 

a Spaniard, given the love of French romantic composers for Spanish music.

Program notes by Brian Suits

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