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 of

the West Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

Mailing address

2000B South Club Drive

Landover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

The Sixty-sixth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery of Art

2,649th Concert

National Gallery Orchestra

Bjarte Engeset, guest conductor

Isa Katharina Gericke, soprano

Presented in connection with the

Norwegian Christmas Festival at Union Station

December 9, 2007

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
This concert is made possible in part by a generous grant

from the Royal Norwegian Embassy.

Program

Music by Edvard Grieg (1843-1907)

From Symphony in C Minor (1864)

Intermezzo

Lyric Suite, op. 54 (1891)

Gjetergutt (Shepherd Boy)

Gangar (Norwegian Dance) 

Notturno (Nocturne)

Trolltog (March ofthe Dwarfs)

From Haugtussa, op. 67 (1895)

Orchestrated by Sparre Olsen

Det syng (It Sings)

Veslemoy (The Little Maid)

Elsk (Love)

Vond dag (Evil Day)

Killingdans (Little Goats’ Dance)

INTERMISSION
Suitefor Orchestra from Slatter, op. 72 (1902-1903)

Orchestrated by Oystein Sommerfeldt

Bruremarsch etter Myllarguten (Wedding March after Myllarguten)

Haugelat: Hailing (Hailing from The Fairy Hill)

John Vestafes springdans (Jon Vestafe’s Spring Dance)

From Six Orchestral Songs (eg 177)

En svane (A Swan)

Fra Monte Pincio (From Monte Pincio)

Varen (Last spring)

From Peer Gynt, op. 23

1 bryllupsgarden (At the wedding-Overture to Act 1)

Brudefolget dragger forbid (Bridal Procession)

Dans av Dovregubbens datter (Dance ofthe Mountain King’s daughter)

I Dovregubbens hall (In the Hall ofthe Mountain King)

The Musicians

NATIONAL GALLERY ORCHESTRA

The National Gallery Orchestra was founded in 1943 and initially consisted

of approximately twenty-five players drawn from the National Symphony

Orchestra. Gradually growing in numbers, the Gallery orchestra eventually

reached the size and status of a large chamber orchestra. The ensemble

has undertaken the full range of chamber and symphonic repertoire and

has frequently presented first performances ofworks by American composers, most notably the 1953 premiere ofCharles Ives’ Symphony no. 1 under

the direction of Richard Bales and the 1990 premiere of Daniel Pinkham’s

Symphony no. 4 under George Manos.

BJARTE ENGESET

Norwegian conductor Bjarte Engeset received his degree from the Sibelius

Academy in Helsinki in 1989, where he studied with conductor and composer

Jorma Panula. Two years later, he was chosen as a member ofthe Tanglewood

Music Center Seminar of conductors where the faculty included Seiji Ozawa,

Gustav Meier, Simon Rattle, and Marelc Janowski, among others.

Engeset has been music director ofthe Tromso Symphony Orchestra

and the Norwegian Wind Ensemble. He has also served as artistic director

of both Northern Norway’s Northern Lights Festival and Opera Nord, and

was permanent guest conductor ofthe Flemish Radio Orchestra. In 2007

Engeset was appointed chief conductor of Sweden’s Dala Sinfonietta.

Engeset has performed concerts, tours, and has made recordings with

leading orchestras including the Bournemouth Symphony, the Czech

Philharmonic, ndr Philharmonic Orchestra, Oslo Philharmonic, Royal

Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, and Zagreb Philharmonic. In November

2005 his Baltimore Symphony Orchestra concerts received standing

ovations and superb reviews. The following year, Engeset led the Moscow 

Radio Symphony Orchestra in a guest performance at the prestigious

Worthersee Classics Festival in Klagenfurt, Austria.

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Engeset’s discography contains a number of critically acclaimed bestselling albums and includes a comprehensive recording ofthe orchestral

music of Edvard Grieg for Naxos. He appears at the National Gallery by

arrangement with Pro Arte International Management of Bergen, Norway.

ISA KATHARINA GERICKE

Isa Katharina Gericke was born in Berlin and grew up in Norway. She 

studied with Ingrid Bjoner and Svein Bjorkoy at the Norwegian Music

Academy in Oslo, and with Ingrid Figur at the Hochschule der Kiinste in

Berlin. In 2001 she won first prize in the national division ofthe Queen

Sonja International Music Competition in Oslo. The following year she

received the Luitpold Prize at the Kissinger Sommer, and was selected as

a performer within the Norwegian Concert Institute’s career-launching

initiative, “iNTRO-classic,” for 2002-2004.

Gericke is a popular and sought-after soloist with orchestras, and has

sung with most Norwegian and a number ofinternational orchestras

including the bbc Symphony, the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, and the

Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. She has participated in numerous festivals 

in Scandinavia, as well as in Austria, Canada, Germany, and South Africa 

and has worked with conductors such as Sir Andrew Davis, Phillippe

Herreweghe, Manfred Honeck, and Tonu Kaljuste.

With remarkable versatility, she has sung Pamina in Mozart’s The Magic

Flute, and was a soloist in Olav Anton Thommessen’s The Hermaphrodite

in the same week. As a Lieder singer she has worked with RudolfJansen,

Brigitte Fassbaender, and Hakan Hagegard. Her research into the field of

German Lied in Norway led to her 2003 recording, Waldabendlust. She 

is artistic director of an annual chamber music festival, Glogerfestspillene,

in Kongsberg, Norway, and is a driving force behind the newly established

Oslo Baroque Opera. Isa Katharina Gericke appears at the National Gallery 

by arrangement with Scanarts Management of Oslo, Norway.

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Program Notes

This concert marks the fourth time that the National Gallery ofArt and the

Royal Norwegian Embassy have collaborated on a concert in connection with

the Norwegian Christmas Festival at Union Station. Since 2004 violinist

Henning Kraggerud, accordionist Kier Draugsvoll, and the chamber choir

Nordic Voices have participated in the concert. The festival, now in its 

eleventh year, provides the nation’s capital with a taste of Norway through

concerts, exhibits, a holiday bazaar, and special menus at Union Station and

other venues throughout the city. To launch each year’s festival, a thirty-twofoot Christmas tree is erected and decorated at Union Station—a gift from

Norway to the people ofWashington. The tree symbolizes the friendship

between the two countries and expresses Norway’s gratitude for assistance

received from the United States during World War 11. This is the first

festival for the new Ambassador of Norway to the United States, Wegger

Chr. Strommen, who arrived in Washington in October. More information

on the Norwegian Christmas Festival is available at www.nonvay.org/xmas.

This year marks the one hundredth anniversary ofthe death ofEdvard

Grieg, who has been honored with numerous international performances and

events celebrating his music and his contribution to Norwegian culture. Grieg

was a lifelong proponent ofNorwegian national identity, and his music is now 

considered an integral part ofthe history and culture ofthat country. Beginning

in the 1840s, a growing movement toward nationalism in music emerged. This 

movement lasted for approximately 100 years and was particularly dominant

in Central Europe and Czarist Russia, where it was spearheaded by well-known 

composers such as Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857), Aleksandr Borodin (1833-1887),

and Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881). In Norway, Edvard Grieg, along with his

countrymen Christian Sinding (1856-1941) and Johan Svendsen (1849-1911),

attached themselves wholeheartedly to this movement.

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Encouraged by a family friend, the virtuoso violinist Ole Bull (1810-1880),

Grieg entered the Leipzig Conservatory as a piano student at age fifteen. While 

there, he received solid training from some of Europe's most eminent teachers,

and in his fourth year studied composition with Carl Reinecke. In the two years

following his studies at the conservatory, Grieg spent time in Copenhagen,

which was the current center of Scandinavian cultural activity. There, he came

under the influence ofNiels Gade (1817-1890), the recognized leader ofthe

Scandinavian romantic school. Gade gave Grieg the assignment of composing a

symphony. Though he did not feel up to the task, Grieg completed the exercise,

but notated on the score that the piece was not to be performed. The two

middle movements, an Adagio and the Intermezzo with which this program

begins, were first published as Deux Pieces symphoniques, op. 14, for piano duet.

Grieg continued to have a successful career as a pianist and toured

extensively as a solo performer and accompanist. His Piano Concerto, op. 16

(1868), established him as both performer and composer, and works for solo 

piano dominated his output. The four pieces in the Lyric Suite, op. 54, were

originally written for piano in 1891 as one often sets oflyric pieces and were

orchestrated in 1904 by the composer. Based on Norwegian folksongs, these

charming pieces can best be described as mood sketches.

Grieg was almost as prolific as a composer ofsongs as he was of piano

music. He wrote many songs for solo voice and piano for his wife, Nina, with

whom he toured extensively, and who he considered to be the best interpreter

ofhis vocal music. His songs are almost always strophic in form, with simple

yet lyrical melodies. In later years, he began to experiment more with piano

accompaniment, including longer interludes and new harmonies. Grieg spent

the summer of1895 writing most ofthe pieces that comprise the song cycle

based on Arne Garborg's (1851-1924) epic poem “Haugtussa.” Grieg was

thoroughly enchanted when he first read the poetry, which impressed him as

“a sea ofunborn music.” Five ofthe eight published songs were orchestrated

by Sparre Olsen (1903-1984). The songs tell of a young shepherdess' first

encounter with love and describe the landscape and people ofwestern Norway.

The Suitefor Orchestra from Slatter, op. 72, is based on a group of

seventeen Norwegian peasant dance tunes, which were part ofthe repertoire

ofthe famed Hardanger fiddle player, Knut Dale (1849-1909). At the

request of Dale, and, with the advice of violinist Johan Halvorsen, Grieg

transcribed the dance tunes for piano in 1902-1903. 0ystein Sommerfeldt

(1919-1994) orchestrated three ofthe dances in 1979, emphasizing the folk

element and utilizing the tambourine to bring out the dance rhythms.

Grieg orchestrated six of his own songs in the winter of 1894-1895. En

svane (A Swan) sets a text of Henrik Ibsen (1828-1906). The second song,

Fra Monte Pincio (From Monte Pincio), has a text by Bjornstjerne Bjornson

(1832-1910). It contains impressionistically rendered images ofthe Pincio 

region of Rome. The third song, Vdren (Last Spring), is a sentimental setting

of a poem by Asmund Vinje (1818-1870) that has gained wide popularity

through this orchestral transcription and one for four-voice chorus. Vinje 

championed the use oflandsmal, later called nynors, an indigenous form

ofthe Norwegian language that explicitly avoided Danish influences.

Grieg’s name will always be linked to that ofhis contemporary Ibsen, who 

is recognized as one ofthe greatest dramatists since Shakespeare and who was

the founder of a new concept ofdramatic literature and theatrical production.

Ibsen, in a letter he wrote to Grieg on January 23,1874, expressed his desire for 

incidental music for his play Peer Gynt and asked Grieg to compose it. Grieg

responded positively, but it took him a full year to complete the task. This 

was an unusual length oftime for him, and shows how seriously he took the

assignment. The full score contains twenty-six pieces, but the only well-known 

ones are those that were incorporated in the two Peer Gynt concert suites, 

opp. 23 and 24. Both suites are standard symphony orchestra repertoire and 

are easily recognized throughout the world as Norwegian music by Norway’s

preeminent composer.

Program notes by Danielle DeSwert and Sorab Modi

9
Next Week at the National Gallery of Art

Leipzig String Quartet

Music by Beethoven

November 16, 2007

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

East Building Auditorium

10