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.

For the convenience of concertgoers, 

the Garden Cafe remains open for light refreshments

until 6:oo pm on Sundays.

Please note that late entry or reentry ofthe 

West Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, dc

www.nga.gov

COVER: Felicien Rops, Gaspard de la Nuit (detail), 1868, etching, National

Gallery of Art, Rosenwald Collection

The Seventieth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,876th Concert

Roger Wright, piano

February 26, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920)

The White Peacock (1915)

Robert Muczynski (1929-2010)

Masks (1980)

Scott McClain (b. 1954)

Snow (1997)

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Masques (1903-1904)

Debussy

LTslejoyeuse (1904)

INTERMISSION

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Gaspard de la nuit (1908)

Ondine

Le Gibet

Scarbo

Frederic Rzewski (b. 1938)

“Down by the Riverside” from North American Ballads (1989)

Mily Balakirev (1837-1910)

Islamey: Oriental Fantasy (1869)

The Musician

Hailed by reviewers as “a true romantic pianist” (Washington Post), “astonishingly evocative” (San Antonio Express News), and “savvy, elegant, and charismatic” (American Record Guide), Roger Wright has taken his place among

the most respected virtuosos of our time. A native Texan, he has had the

honor of performing with that state’s Houston and San Antonio symphony 

orchestras, the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, the Glacier Symphony 

Orchestra (Montana), and the Mission Chamber Orchestra in San Jose,

California. Outside the United States, he has appeared with the Brussels

Chamber Orchestra and the Costa Rica National Symphony. In the coming

months, Wright will be the featured soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto

no. 1 with the San Jose Mission Chamber and Choral Society orchestras, and 

will play the inaugural recital ofthe 2012 San Antonio, Texas, International

Piano Competition. Recent recital venues include Dublin, Ireland, and 

Pretoria, South Africa, as well as Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York,

San Antonio, San Diego, and Washington, DC.

Featured in numerous television and radio broadcasts for Chicago

Public Radio, Texas Public Radio, and radio stations in Australia and Canada,

Wright was featured on David Dubai’s celebrated series Reflectionsfrom the

Keyboard on New York City’s wqxr. A versatile performer, Wright is also in

demand as a chamber musician, appearing with members of Camerata San

Antonio, the Las Vegas Philharmonic Orchestra, and the Taos Chamber

Music Group.

A two-time recipient ofthe coveted fellowship award at the Aspen 

Music Festival (2000 and 2001), Wright received special recognition 

from the audience, radio listeners, and critics during his participation in

the 2000 Sydney International Piano Competition. A cd resulting from

that broadcast competition, Piano Masterpieces, was hailed by music critic

Neville Cohen as “cd ofthe Year 2001.” Appearing at the National Gallery

by arrangement with Maestro Management, Roger Wright maintains a

website at www.rogerwright.com.

3
Program Notes

Fortunate to enjoy widespread recognition during his lifetime, Charles

Tomlinson Griffes, who received his early music instruction in his native

New York City, cultivated a style that reflected his subsequent study in 

Germany. As he matured, however, his affinity for French culture and art 

prevailed, and he tended to compose more in the French tradition after

Debussy and Ravel, reflecting as well some influence of Mussorgsky and

Scriabin. Like those composers, Griffes used descriptive titles for his works,

incorporated oriental-sounding pentatonic scales, and unfolded his melodies in rhapsodic form. The White Peacock originated as a movement from

Griffes’s Roman Sketches for piano (1915), which the composer later expanded 

into an orchestral arrangement. Having encountered white peacocks in 

Berlin during his student years, he gained further inspiration from the final

verses of an eponymous poem from the third volume of Sospiri di Roma

(Sighs from Rome) by Scottish poet William Sharp (1855-1905):

Here, as the breath, as the soul ofthis beauty,

White as a cloud through the heats ofthe noontide

Moves the White Peacock.

Each episode ofthe piece begins with short, fragmented motives that extend

into longer melodies—a musical portrayal of a bird hopping aimlessly in

place before taking flight.

Born in Chicago, Robert Muczynski studied piano with Walter Knupfer 

and composition with Alexander Tcherepnin at DePaul University. Following a debut concert ofhis piano works at Carnegie Hall in 1958, major

orchestras in the United States and abroad began to play and commission

his work. In 1982 his Concertofor Alto Saxophone and Chamber Orchestra

was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. To prepare the listener for the generally

ominous mood of Masks, Muczynski precedes the music with a quotation in

the preface from Jonathan Swift: “Harlequin without his mask is known to

present a very sober countenance.”

Composer-pianist Scott McClain’s compositional style embodies his

versatile training in jazz, folk, and classical music. He completed his studies

4

in composition with Stefan Young and in piano with Harold Zabrack at

Westminster Choir College in 1997. Based in Mesila, New Mexico, McClain

has received commissions to compose for choirs; instrumental ensembles;

and dance, theater, and radio productions. He composed Snow as an impressionistic meditation on the first snowfall of 1997.

Claude Debussy often drew inspiration from other forms of art, as in the

case of Masques, a musical setting ofAntoine Watteau’s (1684-1721) painting

Le Mezzetin. A guitar player is shown, recognizable by his costume as

Mezzetin from the cast ofthe Commedia delXarte, a character who is forever

frustrated in love. In the background is a silhouette of a woman with her

back turned to Mezzetin. In Debussy’s piece, an understated but palpable

tension prevails throughout, underscoring the duality between tragedy and 

comedic irony. Debussy’s friends and pupils commented that he often wore

a metaphorical mask to suppress his poignant feelings, and surmised that

this trait found musical expression in Masques.

Debussy wrote LTslejoyeuse in 1904, just before taking a summer

vacation with his lover, Emma Bardac, to the island ofJersey in the English

Channel. The landscape ofthis island doubtless provided Debussy with a

definite image as he edited and revised his work, but his primary inspiration

once again was a painting by Watteau—L’Embarquement pour Cythere.

Cythere, the island home ofAphrodite in Greek mythology, resembles an 

idyllic paradise in Watteau’s work, although it is unclear whether the travelers are embarking to or from the island. Regardless of direction, this voyage

represents the fleeting nature oflove and emphasizes man’s nostalgia and 

longing for paradise. Debussy’s setting is equally ambiguous in creating an 

image of departure or arrival. There is an introduction followed by a rhapsodic sequence that builds in volume, speed, and intensity with shorter,

lyrical interruptions, all culminating in a rousing finale. LTsle joyeuse is a

true virtuoso piece. Debussy himself wrote, “Heavens! How difficult it is to

play...This piece seems to embrace every possible manner oftreating the 

piano, combining as it does strength and grace.”

Maurice Ravel composed the three tone poems that make up Gaspard de

la nuit to represent three of Louis Bertrand’s macabre poems written in the

5
gothic style of Edgar Allan Poe. In the first poem, Ondine, the narrator

hallucinates a water-nymph’s attempt to lure him down into her dwelling

place for all eternity. The second, Le Gibet, is a morbid picture ofthe gallows 

at sunset with church bells tolling in the distance. The third, Scarbo, is

a virtuosic tour-de-force illustrating a sinister troll who darts about and

ultimately vanishes into thin air. The technical demands of Gaspard were

unprecedented at its time of composition, as Ravel intended. An enthusiastic orchestrator ofmost ofhis solo piano pieces, he left Gaspard untouched

because he believed it too intrinsically pianistic a work to reimagine for

orchestra.

In North American Ballads, Frederic Rzewski manipulates and varies

American folk tunes in much the same way that Johann Sebastian Bach

incorporated Lutheran hymn tunes in his chorale preludes for organ. “Down 

by the Riverside”—the only movement from North American Ballads not

based on a political protest tune—is based on an African American spiritual.

It begins with gospel-style ostinato accompaniment and adds contrapuntal

layers, building to a climax, which is followed by an improvisational section.

The movement ends as it began, with a gospel-blues feeling.

Mily Balakirev was the central figure of a group of Russian composers

known as “The Five,” who dedicated themselves to elevating the recognition

and appreciation of Russian music in the late nineteenth century. A deliberate and methodical composer by nature, Balakirev produced few works that

gained enduring recognition, but Islamey is an exception, both in its “gestation period” (one month) and in its subsequent fame. Having heard a dance

melody played on the violin during a visit to the Caucasus, he developed it

into a full work for solo piano. Thanks to enthusiastic adoption ofthe piece 

by Franz Liszt and Nikolai Rubinstein, who played the premiere, it quickly 

became a benchmark for pianistic virtuosity. Although the composer was 

regarded as a first-rate pianist, he admitted that there were certain passages

that he could not play. Known and admired by Ravel, Islamey was his model

to be surpassed as he conceived the fiendishly difficult passages in Gaspard

de la nuit.

Program notes by Michael Jacko, concert aide, National Gallery ofArt

6

Concerts in March at the National Gallery ofArt

Pascal and Ami Roge, duo pianists

Music by Debussy

Presented in honor ofthe reopening ofthe

Nineteenth-century French galleries

March 4, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

^^2

Carmen Balthrop, soprano

Jose Caceres, pianist

Music by Dvorak, Greenleaf, Tchaikovsky, and other composers

March 11, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Cyrus Forough, violinist

Stephen Ackert, pianist

Music by J. S. Bach, Beethoven, Falla, and Handel

March 18, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court