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 ofthe 

West Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

For the convenience of concertgoers, 

the Garden Cafe remains open for light refreshments

until 6:00 pm on Sundays.

Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

www.nga.gov

cover: Paul Gauguin, Musique barbare (Barbaric Music), 1893,

Kunstmuseum Basel, Kupferstichkabinett, Gift of Richard Doetsch-Benziger

The Sixty-ninth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,833rd Concert

Franqois Chaplin, pianist

Presented in honor of

Gauguin: Maker ofMyth

March 20, 2011

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849)

Nocturne in B-flat Minor, op. 9, no. 1 (1833)

Gabriel Faure (1845-1924)

Nocturne no. 1 in E-flat Minor, op. 33, no. 1 (1875)

Chopin

Etude in Aflat Major, op. 25, no. 1

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

From Etudes, Book 11 (1916)

Pour les arpeges composes, L. 136/11

Debussy

From Preludes, Book 1 (1910)

Les Sons et les parfums toument dans I’air du soir

La Cathedrale engloutie

Des pas sur la neige

From Preludes, Book 11 (1913)

Feux d’'artifice

Debussy

From Suite bergamasque (1905)

Clair de lune

Chopin

Barcarolle, op. 60 (1845-1846)

Debussy

I'Islejoyeuse (1904)

The Musician

Described by French music critic Alain Cochard as “one ofthe most original

and engaging ofall French pianists,” Francois Chaplin won the International

Piano Competition in Senigallia, Italy, in 1987 and the Mozart and Robert 

Casadesus Prizes at the International Competition in Cleveland two years

later. He studied piano at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique

under Ventsislav Yankoff and Jean-Claude Pennetier and accompaniment

and chamber music under Jacqueline Robin.

Chaplin has appeared as a soloist in many ofthe world’s capitals, including Berlin, London, Mexico City, Moscow, Paris, and Tokyo, and with the

French National, Japan Philharmonic, and Saint Petersburg Philharmonic

orchestras. He appears regularly at the Cervantino Festival in Mexico; France’s

Chopin at Nohant, Chopin at Paris Bagatelle, Flaneries Musicales, La Roqued’Antheron, Pontlevoy, Reims, and Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges festivals;

and in music festivals in Japan, Kazakhstan, Latvia, and Russia. As a chamber musician, Chaplin has collaborated with the Debussy, Elysees, Psophos,

and Talich String quartets as well as with cellists Emmanuelle Bertrand and

Francois Salque, clarinetist Patrick Messina, and pianists Marie-Joseph Jude 

and Cedric Tiberghien. Chaplin’s recordings have met with great critical

acclaim, and his recording of Debussy’s complete piano works received a

Diapason d’Or and the bbc Magazine and Telerama awards. He has also 

recorded works by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Chopin, Mozart, Poulenc,

and Schumann.

Born in Paris into a family of painters, Chaplin often accompanied his

parents on visits to the Barbizon Museum, and quickly grasped the link

between music and the colors of nature. He vividly remembers having a

strong attraction as a beginning pianist to the exercise Chant arabe in the

method book La Methode rose. His precocious taste for tone color and modal

sound needed only the stimulation ofCharles Baudelaire’s (1821-1867)

Correspondances to turn him into a dedicated Debussy performer. Professor

of piano at the Versailles National Music Conservatory, he regularly gives

master classes in French music at the Conservatory of Saint Petersburg and

the University of Montreal as well as in Japan, Kazakhstan, and Norway.

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Program Notes

The early twentieth century was a period ofrigorous innovation and iconoclasm in France, as artists such as Paul Cezanne, Odilon Redon, and Henri

Rousseau and composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel expanded the 

aesthetic concepts that had been formulated by nineteenth-century symbolist authors and poets such as Baudelaire, Stephane Mallarme (1842-1898), 

and Paul Verlaine (1844-1896). Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) lived only three

years into the twentieth century, but his late works set the stage for what was

to come in the post-impressionist and early modern periods. The exhibition 

Gauguin: Maker ofMyth examines the artist’s use ofreligious and mythological symbols to tell stories, reinventing or appropriating narratives and myths. 

Drawing from the symbolism in his European cultural heritage and from

Maori legend, Gauguin invested his art with deeper meaning, ritual, and

myth—a fusion that continues to mesmerize viewers of his works. The

exhibition remains on view in the East Building until June 5, 2011.

In honor ofthe exhibition, pianist Francois Chaplin has selected music

by French composers who accomplished a similar synthesis. Chopin was

born in Poland, but spent most of his adult life in France and was profoundly

influenced by French literature and art. He did not invent the nocturne—

Irish composer John Field originated the genre—but in his three Nocturnes,

op. 9, he surpassed all previous examples. Chopin’s nocturnes stand out for

their original melodies, rich harmonies, and distinct pianistic style. Op. 9 is

dedicated to Marie Pleyel (1811-1875), wife °fthe Austrian piano maker

Camille Pleyel (1788-1855).

Gabriel Faure was a close contemporary of Gauguin, and his music was

revered by the artists and intellectuals of his generation as well as by his 

fellow musicians. Faure’s Nocturne no. 1 for piano is believed to have been

written between 1875 and 1877, but it was not available to the public until

1883, when the composer’s second and third nocturnes were also ready for

publication. The first nocturne exhibits the influence ofChopin in form as

well as in its dark romantic sonorities. The main theme is gentle and 

reflective, permeated with a sweet gloom, as the music seems to be continually descending in pitch. The lengthy middle section starts almost as ifit

4

were a new piece: after a pause, an ominous swirling figure in the bass is

heard, over which a mysterious theme appears in the upper-middle register,

both stately and agitated. Tension gradually builds and is only slowly released

when the main theme returns for a reprise.

Chopin’s Etude in Aflat Major has been dubbed both the “Aeolian Harp,”

on account ofits continuously undulating arpeggios, and the “Shepherd

Boy,” based on Chopin’s remark to a student that when playing the piece he

thought of a scene—a shepherd boy takes refuge from an approaching

storm in a quiet grotto; as the rumblings ofthe storm approach in the background, the shepherd plays a simple tune on his flute.

One of a set oftwelve etudes that Debussy composed in 1915, Pour les

arpeges composes is a study in arpeggiated chords and harmonies. The collection is dedicated to the memory of Chopin, whose famous etudes served

as models for Debussy. Both composers succeeded in simultaneously tackling

a particular technical feature of pianism and producing a satisfying and 

entertaining piece ofmusic.

Each of Debussy’s preludes is a short but substantial work that conveys

a particular mood or impression. In accordance with the composer’s practice of assigning a title only after the completion of a work, the title of each

prelude is placed at the end ofthe piece, rather than at the beginning.

Inspired by a line from the poem Harmonie du soir (Evening Harmony) by

Baudelaire, Les Sons et les parfums toument dans I’air du soir (Sounds and 

Odors Waft in the Evening Air) is the fourth prelude in Book 1. It is among

the most evocative and compelling ofthese miniature masterworks. In La

Cathedral engloutie (The Sunken Cathedral), Debussy offers a striking musical

evocation ofthe mythical submerged Cathedral ofYs with modality and 

parallel harmonies that are at once mysterious and archaic. The rhythmic

stasis and massive sonorities create a sense of awe and grandeur. In Des pas

sur la neige (Footsteps in the Snow), a barren winter snowscape is represented 

by a plaintive, harmonically static dirge. The slow, sustained legato underpins

the powerfully hypnotic atmosphere. The prelude that concludes Book 11,

Feux d’artifice (Fireworks), is the musical equivalent of a fireworks display

over Paris. Brilliant arpeggios, trills, and rapid chord passages characterize

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this, the most technically challenging ofthe preludes. The work comes to

an effective close with a distant quote of “La Marseillaise,” sounded over a

hushed tremolo.

Inspired by the eponymous poem by Paul Verlaine (1844-1896), Clair

de lune (Moonlight) is the third piece of Debussy’s Suite bergamasque for piano. 

The title ofthe suite quotes a line from the poem (... ou vont masques et

bergamasques.. .where masqueraders and dancers go), and the middle section of Clair de lune evokes the surging flow ofthe fountains to which the

poem also refers (... les grandsjets d’eau sveltes parmi les marbres... the grand,

graceful fountains among the marbles).

In the latter part ofChopin’s career, his health was deteriorating from

tuberculosis and his relationship with George Sand, one ofthe most successful novelists ofher day, was beginning to crumble. During this troubled

period he remained fairly productive and produced, among other compositions, the upbeat Barcarolle, op. 60. While it exhibits the rocking lilt associated

with songs sung by gondoliers, it goes far beyond the level of a song without

words, delving deeply into romantic emotion and musical development.

Debussy’s Elsiejoyeuse was inspired by Antoine Watteau’s (1684-1721)

painting Embarcationfor Cythere. Consisting of a single movement in a highly 

modified sonata form, the work uses a technique similar to the alteration

ofsonata form that Chopin used in his ballades. The lyrical second subject

returns infortissimo at the conclusion as a fervent paean. Elsiejoyeuse has

an almost orchestral quality, as a number of hallmarks of Debussy’s mature

style—parallel sonorities, whole-tone structures, multiple layers ofsound,

atmospheric effects, and melodic fragmentation—are in full evidence.

Program notes by Stephen Ackert, head, music department,

National Gallery ofArt

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Next week at the National Gallery ofArt

Tanya Anisimova, cellist

Lydia Frumkin, pianist

Music by

Anisimova and Schubert

Presented in honor of

Women’s History Month

March 23, 2011

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Women and Children ofthe

Washington Performing Arts Society Gospel Choirs

Gospel music

Presented in honor of

Women’s History Month

March 27, 2011

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court