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until 6:oo pm on Sundays.

Please note that late entry or reentry ofthe

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Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

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Concerts are made possible in part through the generosity of donors

to the National Gallery of Art through The Circle. Reserved seating is

available in recognition oftheir support. Please contact the development 

office at (202) 842-6450 or circle@nga.gov for more information.

The Seventy-third Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

3,017th Concert

National Gallery ofArt Orchestra

Philippe Entremont, guest conductor

Michel Lethiec, clarinetist

October 12, 2014

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Prelude a I’apres-midi d’unfaune

(Prelude to the Afternoon ofa Faun) (1894)

Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921)

Sonatafor Clarinet in E-flat Major, op. 167 (1921),

transcribed for orchestra by Franck Villard

Allegretto

Allegro animato

Lento

Molto allegro; allegretto

INTERMISSION

Georges Bizet (1838-1875)

Symphony no. 1 in C Major (1855)

Allegro vivo

Andante; adagio

Allegro vivace

Finale: Allegro vivace

The Musicians

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART ORCHESTRA

Founded in 1943, the National Gallery ofArt Orchestra began with a small 

cadre ofmusicians drawn from the National Symphony Orchestra. Over

time the Gallery orchestra reached the size and status of a large chamber

ensemble, performing the full range of chamber and symphonic repertoire. 

It has frequently debuted works by American composers, most notably

the 1953 premiere ofCharles Ives’s Symphony no. 1 under the direction of

Richard Bales; the 1990 premiere of Daniel Pinkham’s Symphony no. 4

under George Manos; and the 2007 premiere ofJohn Musto’s Later the

Same Evening: An opera inspired byfive paintings ofEdward Hopper, under

guest conductor Glen Cortese. Other guest conductors who have appeared 

with the orchestra in recent years include Bjarte Engeset, Vladimir Lande,

George Mester, Otto-Werner Mueller, and Jose Serebrier.

PHILIPPE ENTREMONT

Philippe Entremont gained international attention at age eighteen when

he played his New York debut in Carnegie Hall, performing piano concertos 

by Franz Liszt (1811-1886) and Andre Jolivet (1905-1974). The first concert 

in Entremont’s concurrent American debut tour took place on January 4,

1953, at the National Gallery of Art. This evening’s concert marks his fourth

appearance at the Gallery in the course ofhis eminent career spanning

more than sixty years.

Chosen to perform in the “Piano Extravaganza ofthe Century” at the 

2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Entremont serves as president ofthe International Certificate for Piano Artists and the Bel’Arte Foundation of Brussels.

He has been active the past thirty years as both a conductor and a performer. 

He has led the Deutsche Staatsphilharmonie, the Israel Festival Orchestra, 

and the Munich and Shenzhen Symphony orchestras. He is the principal

conductor ofthe Boca Raton Philharmonic Symphonia, artistic director and 

conductor ofthe Santo Domingo Music Festival Orchestra, and lifetime

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laureate conductor ofthe Israel Chamber, Munich Symphony, and Vienna

Chamber orchestras. From 1981 to 2002, he served as music director ofthe

New Orleans Philharmonic, the Denver Symphony, and the Netherlands

Chamber orchestras.

Entremont has been awarded Austria’s Arts and Sciences Cross of

Honor and Great Cross ofthe Republic and France’s Legion of Honor,

Order of Merit, and Order ofArts and Letters, in which he holds the title

ofCommander. He appears at the National Gallery by arrangement with

Columbia Artists Management, Inc.

MICHEL LETHIEC

Michel Lethiec stands as one ofthe finest clarinetists in the world, performing

internationally as a soloist with orchestras, as a recitalist, and as a chamber

musician. Born in France, he studied at the Paris Conservatory, where he

earned first prizes in both clarinet and chamber music. He went on to win the

interpretation prize in the international competition in Belgrade. Following

his Carnegie Hall debut in 1980, Lethiec has toured extensively in Europe, the

United States, the Middle East, and Asia. Recent and upcoming appearances

include concerts at the Budapest and Prague Festivals, Alice Tully Hall in New

York, Champs Elysees Theater in Paris, Hamburg’s Philharmonie, Munich’s

Herkulesaal, Vienna’s Musikverein, and Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Hall.

Lethiec’s discography includes many recordings ofthe solo and chamber

music clarinet repertory, played with Concentus Hungaricus, Moscow 

Virtuosos, the Lindsay Quartet, and the Scottish Ensemble. An enthusiastic

performer of contemporary music, he has premiered concertos and pieces

by Ballif, Boucourechliev, Corigliano, and Risset. Artistic director ofthe Pau 

Casals Festival in Prades, France, Michel Lethiec appears at the National

Gallery by arrangement with Dispeker Artists.

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Program Notes

Presented in honor ofthe exhibition Degas’s Little Dancer, which opened on

October 5 in the West Building, Main Floor, gallery 52, this evening’s concert

features works by French composers written during the adult life of Edgar

Degas (1834-1917). The progam represents a broad spectrum of French

dance music, which was an important part ofthe artist’s cultural milieu.

Claude Debussy called his Prelude a I’apres-midi d’unfaune a “free 

illustration” of Stephane Mallarme’s eponymous poem. Debussy described

his work as a “succession ofscenes through which pass the desires and

dreams ofthe faun in the heat ofthe afternoon. Then, tired of pursuing the

timorous flight of nymphs and naiads, he succumbs to intoxicating sleep, in

which he can finally realize his dreams of possession in universal Nature.”

Vaslav Nijinsky (1890-1950) used the Prelude as the basis for a dance piece

with the Ballets Russes in 1912. In this form it became one ofthe ballet

company’s early sensations, contributing significantly to the artistic hotbed

offin-de-siecle Paris during Degas’s later years.

Debussy’s meditation on youth and discovery meanders rhapsodically

through various scenes linked by recurring musical motives. He evokes

the sound ofnature from the very first note: the flute’s held C-sharp is the

most open note on the instrument, played without depressing any keys.

This effect warps time, giving the modern flute the sound of a set ofsimple

panpipes. Peppered throughout the piece are pentatonic and whole-tone

scales that infuse the music with exoticism. French composer Pierre Boulez 

considers the work “the beginning ofmodern music... a work that barely

grasps onto tonality and harmonic function.” Two examples of Debussy’s

flexible, wandering, harmonic language occur in the first few measures.

The opening flute solo descends chromatically over the range of a tritone,

generally known as the most dissonant interval. Then, the first point of

digression from the flute solo is a revoiced statement of Richard Wagner’s

famously ambiguous first chord from Tristan und Isolde (1859). Both Wagner

and Debussy use this unresolved chord to suggest a directionless longing.

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In 1921, when he was eighty-five years old, Camille Saint-Saens composed the Sonatafor Clarinet in E-fat Major. He continued to be active as

a composer and performer, traveling frequently between Algiers and Paris. 

Aiming to complete six sonatas for wind instruments before his death,

he was able to complete three—one for oboe, one for bassoon, and one

for clarinet. He wrote in a letter to a friend in his final year oflife, “I

am using my last energies to add to the repertoire for these otherwise

neglected instruments.” While these three sonatas were published before

the composer’s death, performances took place only posthumously.

Saint-Saens’s Sonatafor Clarinet has four movements, which is more

characteristic ofthe Classical sonata tradition than the three-movement

Romantic tradition. The first movement is briefbut varied, with some

moments of calm and others of great passion. The lively spirit ofthe second

movement scherzo contrasts sharply with the plodding, dirgelike character

ofthe third movement lento. Following the lento without pause is the molto

allegro finale, in which the clarinet plays the most demanding and dazzling

virtuoso passages ofthe entire sonata. The work concludes, however, with

the same hushed, placid allegretto music from the first movement.

For all the acclaim Georges Bizet’s Symphony in Chas enjoyed, the

composer never considered it among his important works. He wrote the

symphony as a student project within the span of a month, while studying

with Charles Gounod (1818-1893) at the Paris Conservatoire. The symphony’s

stylistic, orchestrational, melodic, and harmonic similarities to Gounod’s own 

Symphony no. 1 in D Major (1855) may also explain why Bizet buried the work

in his stack ofmanuscripts. It was not until Austrian conductor Felix Weingartner (1863-1942) came into possession ofthe manuscript that the work

received its premiere in 1935. It was first recorded two years later, facilitating 

the symphony’s introduction into the Romantic repertoire.

Immediately recognizable in Bizet’s symphonic music are its balletic

features. A certain melodic charm, rhythmic vitality and consistency,

and catchy repetition give his Symphony in C a dancelike quality. George

Balanchine (1904-1983), a lead dancer and choreographer with the Ballets

Russes in the 1920s, noticed this feature ofthe music, adapting it in 1947

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into a ballet named Le Palais de cristal. The first movement begins with a

terse three-note theme, which eventually gives way to a more lyrical second

subject. This lyricism dominates the rest ofthe movement, though the first

theme persists throughout as a recurring motive. The adagio begins and

ends with a hauntingly beautiful oboe solo. The middle section consists of

luxurious operatic string passages and a slow fugal section. The scherzo

features lively, snapping rhythms in the Scottish style, and the finale is a

nimble allegro vivo that highlights the exuberance of Bizet’s youth.

Program notes by Michael Jacko, music program assistant,

National Gallery ofArt

Upcoming Concert at the National Gallery ofArt

National Gallery ofArt Piano Trio

Music by Brahms and Piazzolla

October 19, 2014

Sunday, 3:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court