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the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:oo pm.

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Music Department

National Gallery of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue NW

Washington, DC

Mailing address

2000B South Club Drive

Landover, MD 20785

www.nga.gov

cover: Paul Stevenson Oles, Conceptual Drawingfor the East Building,

National Gallery ofArt, 1971, National Gallery ofArt Archives

The Sixty-eighth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,784th Concert

Paratore Brothers

April 25, 2010

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

East Building Auditorium

Admissionfree
Program

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Petite Suite (1888)

En Bateau

Cortege

Menuet

Ballet

Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881)

Pictures at an Exhibition (1874)

Arranged for two pianos by Reginald Hache

Promenade

Gnomus

Promenade

11 vecchio Castello

Promenade

Tuileries

Bydlo

Promenade

Ballet ofthe Chicks in Their Shells 

Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle

Promenade

The Market Place at Limoges (Great News!)

Catacombae (Sepulcrum romanum)

Con Mortius in lingua morta

The Hut on Fowl’s Legs (Baba Yaga)

The Great Gate of Kiev

INTERMISSION

Debussy

Three Nocturnes (1897-1899)

Arranged for two pianos by Maurice Ravel

Nuages

Fetes

Sirenes

Claude Bolling (b. 1930)

Jazz Sonata in One Movementfor Two Pianos
The Musicians

Whether playing on one piano or two, Anthony and Joseph Paratore are

recognized as one ofthe nation’s foremost keyboard duos. They have performed on the international stage for more than thirty years, bringing the 

art of duo piano playing to the highest level. The brothers’ professional 

career as a duo officially began in 1973 when, as students offamed pedagogue Rosina Lhevinne, they presented their New York City debut to great 

acclaim. International attention came the following year when they won 

first prize in the Munich International Music Competition, followed by their

European debut six months later.

The Paratore Brothers have since appeared throughout the United States

and Europe, including festival performances in Berlin, Lucerne, Salzburg,

and Vienna as well as at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival and Spoleto

USA. The duo has performed with the New York Philharmonic and the symphony orchestras of Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and San Francisco. European 

orchestra engagements have included the municipal orchestras ofAmsterdam,

Berlin, London, Vienna, Rotterdam, and Warsaw, performing with many

famous conductors including Pierre Boulez, Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos,

Christoph von Dohnanyi, Seiji Ozawa, Leonard Slatkin, Georg Solti, and 

David Zinman.

The Paratore Brothers’ diverse repertoire encompasses the standard

literature for four-hand piano duet and two pianos as well as an ever-growing

number ofrediscovered or newly commissioned works. Composers William

Bolcom, Wolfgang Rihm, and Manfred Trojahn have written especially for

the duo. Their work with jazz great Dave Brubeck, who personally entrusted

his original two-piano music to them, is very special to the brothers. They

premiered his Points on Jazz as well as other Brubeck pieces, appeared with

him in several German cities, and released a CD ofhis music for two pianos 

on the Universal label.

4

The duo has received many awards and honors and has performed for

the presidents of Germany, Italy, and the United States. They are honorary

members ofthe Dante Alighieri Society and recipients ofthe “I Migliori”

award presented by the Pirandello Lyceum for excellence in their chosen

field. They received the George Washington Medal of Honor for outstanding

contributions to community work throughout the United States, and in 1992

a scholarship was established in their name for a deserving music student at

their alma mater, Boston University.

The Paratore Brothers appear frequently on television, including NBC’s

Today Show and Tonight Show, as well as on National Public Radio’s syndicated news program All Things Considered and American Public Radio’s

Performance Today. They have participated in PBS television specials, including 

the twentieth anniversary ofthe Boston Pops with John Williams conducting, “Piano Pizzazz” from WolfTrap, and a special program titled “The 

Paratores: Two Brothers, Four Hands.” Critic Richard Dyer ofthe Boston

Globe noted that it was “fun to watch with a MTV dazzle... talent is what the 

Paratore Brothers are all about.”

5
Program Notes

Most likely composed in 1888, Claude Debussy’s Petite Suite for piano duet

does not exhibit the style that one associates with the composer’s maturity.

Debussy played the premiere performance with Jacques Durand (his future

publisher) on February 2,1889. In 1884, at age twenty-two, he had won the

prestigious Prix de Rome, enabling him to study in Rome for two years. 

Though his time in Italy had been more frustrating than productive—he

had not found inspiration in Italian opera or any other music that was 

current in Italy at the time—the period immediately following (1887-1890)

was quite fruitful. It was only after trips to Bayreuth and the Paris Exhibition

of 1889 that his mature style began to emerge, taking on new idioms and

sounds that he heard in the music ofWagner and the Asian gamelan music

that was played at the exhibition.

Set in four movements, the Petite Suite is lyrical and charming. It was

probably intended by Debussy as music for amateur players, as opposed to

the more complex pieces he would eventually compose for concert pianists.

The suite’s popularity was so great that in 1907 Debussy entrusted its orchestration to a younger composer, Henri Biisser (1872-1973), and its popularity

continues to this day. In composing the suite, Debussy borrowed from the

musical styles ofthe time as well as from his renowned contemporaries. The

rolling barcarolle of En Bateau calls to mind Gabriel Faure’s (1845-1924)

style, while Cortege is more rhythmic and festive, in the manner of Georges

Bizet (1838-1875). The centerpiece ofthe suite, Menuet, shows the influence

ofthe French operas ofJules Massenet (1842-1912), and Ballet takes the

listener straight to the Theatre des Champs-Elysees, where dancers whirled

to the music of Leo Delibes (1836-1891) and Emmanuel Chabrier (1841-1894).

6

Modest Mussorgsky and artist Viktor Hartmann (1834-1873) were

introduced to each other sometime around 1870. Both were devoted to the

cause of Russian art, and they quickly became close friends. In 1873 Hartmann died suddenly of an aneurism at age thirty-nine. His untimely death

devastated Mussorgsky. In January 1874 a memorial exhibition of Hartmann’s work was put together by art critic Vladimir Stasov at the Russian

Academy ofArts. The paintings that Mussorgsky saw there became the basis

for Pictures at an Exhibition, which eventually became his best-known work. 

Touched by the images from the exhibition and still mourning the loss of

his friend, Mussorgsky completed the entire work in one month’s time. The

opening Promenade and its recurrences represent the composer’s meandering

through the exhibition from one painting to the next. Sometimes the pace

is hurried; at other times it is relaxed and reflective. The variety ofmusical

colors, styles, and imagery in each ofthe movements makes Pictures at an

Exhibition a continually enjoyable and fresh work, no matter how many

times one has listened to it.

Publication of Pictures at an Exhibition did not come until 1886, almost

six years after Mussorgsky’s death. It was originally written for piano solo,

and in that version has become a showpiece ofvirtuosity for the concert

pianist. It was orchestrated numerous times, most famously by Maurice Ravel

in 1922, after which it became a mainstay ofthe concert repertoire. The

arrangement for two pianos four hands was done by Reginald Hache in 1982.

Debussy’s categorization as an “Impressionist”—a label that he scorned

along with Renoir, Monet, and other artists who were similarly categorized

by the press—was fully realized by the time he wrote his three Nocturnes in

the late 1890s. Having spent several years living the bohemian life, Debussy

was much influenced by all other forms of art that were being created around

him. He had become friends with several artists, including Henri de ToulouseLautrec (1864-1901), Paul Gauguin (1848-1903), and James McNeill Whistler

(1834-1903). It was a set of eponymous paintings by Whistler that inspired

Debussy to compose these three Nocturnes for orchestra. Maurice Ravel

arranged them for two pianos.
Debussy included an introductory note to the Nocturnes to explain how

he envisioned them:

The title Nocturnes is to be interpreted here in a general and,

more particularly, in a decorative sense. Therefore, it is not meant

to designate the usual form ofthe nocturne, but rather all the

various impressions and the special effects oflight that the word

suggests. Nuages (Clouds) renders the immutable aspect ofthe sky

and the slow, solemn motion ofthe clouds, fading away in gray

tones lightly tinged with white. Fetes (Festivals) gives us the vibrating, dancing rhythm ofthe atmosphere with sudden flashes of

light. There is also the episode ofthe procession (a dazzling fantastic vision), which passes through the festive scene and becomes

merged in it. But the background remains consistantly the same:

the festival with its blending ofmusic and luminous dust participating in the cosmic rhythm. Sirenes (Sirens) depicts the sea and its

countless rhythms and presently, among the waves silvered by the

moonlight, is heard the mysterious song ofthe Sirens as they laugh

and pass on.

After first winning world-wide acclaim as a jazz performer, pianist,

arranger, and conductor, Claude Bolling wrote music for films and backed

Brigitte Bardot, Sacha Distel, Juliette Greco, and other vocalists in commercial recording sessions. Born in Cannes, in southern France, Bolling has

spent the greater part of his life in Paris where, as a child prodigy, his formative musical influences were many and varied. After initial training with

the pianist, trumpeter, and percussionist Marie-Louise Bob Colin in Nice,

Bolling discovered his passion for jazz while still at school. Strongly drawn

toward ragtime and influenced by recordings of the great early exponents of

jazz piano, he was particularly inspired by the stride style of Fats Waller. By

1944 Bolling was already active semi-professionally in small groups. From

the 1960s onward he wrote prolifically for films, and has more than a hundred film and TV soundtracks to his credit.

During the early 1970s, complementing a steady output ofmainstream

jazz albums, he began to experiment with another interest, classical crossover, and composed quite a number ofworks that fall into this category. He

collaborated with flutist Jean-Pierre Rampal on his album Suitefor Flute and

Jazz Piano Trio, followed by several collaborations with other well-known

classical musicians such as Maurice Andre, Emmanuel Ax, and Yo-Yo Ma

on pieces such as Suitefor Piano and Chamber Orchestra. He composed several 

two-part inventions for piano, all set in sonata form, and two sonatas for 

two pianos.

Program notes by Danielle DeSwert Hahn, music program specialist,

National Gallery ofArt

9
Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

Diane Walsh, pianist

Music by Couperin, Haydn,

Ravel, and Schubert

May 2, 2010

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court