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

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-first Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,950th Concert

Gabrielius Alekna, pianist

Presented in collaboration with the

Delegation ofthe European Union to the United States

May 26, 2013

Sunday, 4 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Gabriel Faure (1845-1924)

Nocturne no. 6 in D-jlat Major, op. 63

Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969)

Sonata no. 2

Maestoso; agitato

Largo

Toccata: Vivo

Vytautas Bacevicius (1905-1970)

Sestas zodis/Sixieme mot, op. 72 (Sixth Word)

Franz Liszt (1811-1866)

Hungarian Rhapsody no. 12, S. 244/12

The Musician

The first Lithuanian to hold a doctor ofmusical arts degree from the Juilliard 

School of Music, Gabrielius Alelcna has appeared as a soloist with the Belarus

State Symphony, Juilliard, New Amsterdam Symphony, and Vienna Radio

symphony orchestras. Featured regularly with Lithuania’s National Symphony,

State Symphony, Lithuanian Chamber, and Saint Christopher Chamber orchestras, he has garnered more than a dozen top prizes in competitions on both

sides ofthe Atlantic. His recording ofthe complete Mots (Words) by Lithuanian composer Vytautas Bacevicius was released last year on the British

label Toccata Classics.

Alekna’s recent engagements have included solo recitals at Adelphi University; in Greenwich, Connecticut’s Bruce Museum; New York’s Deutsches

Haus; Vienna’s Musikverein, Bosendorfer Saal, and Stadtsalon; and a recital

tour often Canadian and American cities marking the one-hundredth anniversary ofthe death of Lithuania’s most important composer and painter,

Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis (1875-1911). In the 2012-2013 concert

season, Alekna’s performances have included Witold Lutoslawski’s Piano

Concerto with the Belarus State Symphony Orchestra, solo recitals at New

York’s Weill Recital Hall and at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, 

and concerts in numerous cities and festivals in Lithuania. A visiting associate professor since 2011 at the Music Academy ofVytautas Magnus University in Kaunas, Lithuania, he is the cofounder of a new arts academy, which

debuts this summer in Birstonas, Lithuania.

Born in Vilnius, Lithuania, Alelcna began his music studies at age five.

After graduating from the M. K. Ciurlionis Arts Gymnasium in Vilnius, he

continued his studies at the Lithuanian Music Academy. In 1996 he was 

invited to attend the Juilliard School, where he studied with Jerome Lowenthal, receiving the bachelor ofmusic, master ofmusic, and doctor ofmusical arts degrees.

3
Program Notes

This afternoon’s concert represents Lithuania in a series generated by the

Delegation ofthe European Union to the United States in collaboration with

the National Gallery ofArt and the Katzen Arts Center at American University,

the Kennedy Center, and the Phillips Collection. Dubbing the month of May

as “The European Month ofCulture,” the Delegation is presenting twentynine concerts in the above-mentioned venues that represent all twenty-seven

countries in the European Union. The final concert ofthe series will be held

at the Gallery on Wednesday, May 29, 2013, at 12:10 pm. Violinist Bruno Nasta 

and pianist Danielle DeSwert Hahn, both members ofthe National Gallery

ofArt Chamber Players, will perform music from Belgium, Estonia, Latvia,

Luxembourg, Malta, and Slovakia.

A program of Lithuanian music provides an ideal opportunity to juxtapose

compositions by the siblings Vytautas Bacevicius (1905-1970) and Grazyna

Bacewicz (1909-1969). Separated to some extent by personal choice, but

also by fate—Grazyna spent her entire life in Poland; Vytautas chose to live

in Lithuania, but was forced to seek asylum in the United States when a concert tour in this country was interrupted by the outbreak ofWorld War 11 — 

the siblings are reunited through their music. Both composers were also prominent concert virtuosos who in their performances promoted their compositions alongside more familiar pieces ofthe classical canon. Continuing with

the idea ofjuxtaposition, the program features examples oftheir work as

well as standard repertoire by Faure and Liszt.

Although Gabriel Faure did not profess to have Chopin’s nocturnes in

mind when he wrote his own works in the same genre, the nocturnes ofboth

composers share an atmosphere ofreverie and quiet contemplation. Faure’s

thirteen nocturnes are acknowledged by connoisseurs of French piano music

to be among his finest pieces, expressing loneliness, despair, and brooding

to an extent that his earlier works did not explore. Nocturne no. 6 in D-Jlat

Major, the longest ofthe series, shares the rapturous expression found in

4

Faure’s song cycle La bonne Chanson, which was completed the same year

(1894). The basic A-B-A form, usually applied to nocturnes, is here extended

by the addition ofan extra episode before the final return ofthe opening theme.

Grazyna Bacewicz was born in Lodz, Poland. Her father, Wincenty

Bacewicz, provided her first piano and violin lessons. From 1928 to 1932, she

studied the violin with JozefJarz^bski, piano with JozefTurczynski, and composition with Kazimierz Sikorski. She continued her education at the Ecole

Normale de Musique in Paris, having been granted a stipend by the famous

pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski, who was at that time the president of Poland.

In Paris she studied composition with Nadia Boulanger and violin with Andre

Touret. After completing her studies, Bacewicz returned to Poland, where

she was appointed principal violinist ofthe Polish Radio Orchestra, which

occasionally performed her music. In spite ofthe ravages ofWorld War 11,

Bacewicz continued to compose, and gave underground secret concerts in

Warsaw. Following the war, she was named professor at the State Conservatory of Music in Lodz. After a serious automobile accident in 1954 left her

unable to play the violin, she focused on composing, earning important

awards and commissions.

Vytautas Bacevicius was Lithuania’s leading avant-garde composer in the

period between the two world wars. In 1932 he was identified by his fellow

Lithuanian composer Jeronimas Kacinskas (1907-2005) as “the first Lithuanian composer who leans towards contemporary European musical culture.”

Bacevicius’ large legacy ofpiano and symphonic works is widely seen as the

most significant and compelling body of Lithuanian music produced between

1900 and the 1960s. Born to a Lithuanian father and a Polish mother, he

was a symbolic figure who linked Lithuania’s national cultural identity with

a wider international context. He was on tour in 1939 when the Germans

invaded Lithuania, rendering him an exile in America. He took up residence

in New York City, taught at various conservatories, and gave eight recitals at

Carnegie Hall, but he devoted his primary efforts to composition and writing about new music, which he defended vigorously. He never returned to

Lithuania, and died in New York in 1970.

5
Noted for their difficulty and a favorite ofvirtuoso pianists ever since 

they were composed in the 1850s, Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies are the works

for which he is best known to the general public. Their popularity increased

dramatically after the 1880s, when Liszt and the Polish conductor and composer Franz Doppler transcribed them for symphony orchestra. They are

marked by sudden and extreme changes oftempo, corresponding to the 

same feature in Hungarian folk dancing, “lassu” (slow) and “friss” (fast).

Program Notes by Gabrielius Alekna

6

Upcoming Concerts at the National Gallery ofArt

National Gallery ofArt Chamber Players

Music by composers from Luxembourg, Malta,

and other European Union countries

In collaboration with the 

Delegation ofthe European Union 

to the United States

May 29, 2013

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

East Building Auditorium

Inscape Chamber Orchestra

Music by Stravinsky

and other composers

Presented in honor of

Diaghilev and the Ballets Russes, igog - 1929:

When Art Danced with Music

Sponsored in part by the 

Billy Rose Foundation

June 2, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm 

East Building Auditorium