When the premiere performance of Bolero took place in New

York City, Louis Biancolli wrote the following: “Staged widely in

Europe and America, Bolero was first performed in this country as a

concert number at a Carnegie Hall concert of the PhilharmonicSymphony [s/c] conducted by Arturo Toscanini. The date was 14

November 1929. The audience was scarcely prepared for the sensation.

Few of the musicians suspected at rehearsals that they were working on a

bombshell. The effect on the Carnegie audience was almost

unprecedented. Many critics joined in the frantic storms of applause....

For the prime object of Bolero musically is the creation of nervous

tension....A two-limbed melody of Spanish character, uttered first by the

flute, after the drum has given out the rhythm, is reiterated by solo

instruments in groups while the volume of sound increases steadily,

inexorably....When it seems that human nerves can endure no more, the

key shift comes with the impact of dynamite. This PhilharmonicSymphony debut made Bolero an American craze” (Julian Seaman, ed.,

Great Orchestral Music: A Treasury ofProgram Notes).

American music critic and lecturer Edward Downes (1911-2001)

wrote: “Ravel’s Bolero was an experiment consisting of what he called

‘orchestral tissue without music.’ In its deeply French combination of the

utmost discipline, even rigidity of form, with an intensity of passion that

threatens to tear the whole thing apart, the Bolero embodies another of

the many paradoxes which made up Ravel’s nature and were also a part

of French tradition.”

Programs notes by Elmer Booze

For the convenience of concertgoers

the Garden Cafe remains open until 6:30 p.m.

The Sixty-first Season of

THE WILLIAM NELSON CROMWELL and

F. LAMMOT BELIN CONCERTS

National Gallery of Art

2461st Concert

NATIONAL GALLERY ORCHESTRA

GEORGE MANOS, conductor

Presented in honor ofthe 25th anniversary

ofthe opening ofthe East Building

ofthe National Gallery ofArt

Sunday Evening, 1 June 2003

Seven O’clock

West Building, West Garden Court

Admission free
Program

Felix Mendelssohn Symphony No. 3 in A Minor (“Scottish”)

(1809-1847) Op. 56 (1842)

Andante con moto; allegro un poco agitato;

assai animato

Scherzo: Vivace non troppo

Adagio cantabile 

Allegro vivacissimo

Intermission

Maurice Ravel Le tombeau de Couperin

(1875-1937) (1919)

Prelude

Forlane

Menuet

Rigaudon

Ravel Bolero

(1928)

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.

Musicians

Conductor, composer, and pianist George Manos has been director of

music at the National Gallery of Art and conductor of the National Gallery

Orchestra since 1985. He is also artistic director of the American Music

Festival and of the National Gallery vocal and chamber ensembles, which

he founded. Manos’ career as a performing pianist and teacher has

included several years on the faculty of The Catholic University of

America in Washington, DC, where he taught piano, conducting, and

chamber music. In addition, he held the directorship of the Wilmington,

Delaware, School of Music, presenting an annual jazz festival and clinic.

Maestro Manos founded and directed for ten years the renowned Kilarney

Bach Festival in the Republic of Ireland and was the music director of the

1992 Scandinavian Music Festival in Kolding, Denmark.

First convened in 1942 and consisting of members of the National

Symphony, the National Gallery Orchestra has presented concerts at the

Gallery on a regular basis ever since. Under the direction of George Manos

since 1985, the orchestra has performed eight of the nine Beethoven

symphonies and all of the symphonies of Mendelssohn and Brahms, as

well as rarely heard works for symphonic ensemble. In the context of the

Gallery’s American Music Festival, the orchestra has presented the world

premiere and Washington premiere performances of more than 150 works,

including thirty-four symphonies and fifteen concertos.

Program Notes

Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 in A Minor, Op. 56 ("Scottish") is a

direct result of the composer’s visit in 1829 to Edinburgh Castle and the

Palace of Holyrood House in Scotland, now the official residence of

Queen Elizabeth II. Mendelssohn was captivated by the setting and made

initial notes and sketches for a symphony while staying there. He did not

complete the work until thirteen years later, on 20 January 1842.

Although numbered third in Mendelssohn’s series of five symphonies,

this work came to completion eight years after his Fourth Symphony

("Italian”). It is his last symphonic composition and is considered to be
his best and most refined work. Mendelssohn dedicated the symphony to

Queen Victoria and applied the subtitle Scottish, remembering his

reaction to the stunning milieu of the Holyrood Palace. He protested

against any suggestion that he had created programmatic music, but

many of his listeners would beg to differ. The brilliance and beauty of the

symphony prompted the renowned German pianist and conductor Hans

von Biilow (1830-1894) to write: “Among symphonies after Beethoven,

Mendelssohn’s Scottish Symphony occupies the highest rank as a selfcontained work of art.”

The four movements are played without pause, making the

symphony a precursor of the symphonische Dichtung (symphonic poem),

a one-movement work established as a genre by Franz Liszt. The

shadowy introduction of the first movement (.Andante con moto; allegro

un poco agitato; assai animato) soon gives way to a more passionate 

undertaking that leads to what may be interpreted as a call of the

Hebridean winds. The second movement (Vivace non troppo) is not

designated a scherzo, although it exhibits the swiftness Mendelssohn’s

scherzi. It is a dance in 2/4 time that alludes to folk music of Scotland,

although Mendelssohn did not intentionally import Scottish folk 

melodies into this work. The poignant emotion of the third movement

(.Adagio cantabile) is extracted from its lyrical opening melody, which is

varied and slightly elaborated each time it returns. The fourth movement

(.Allegro vivacissimo) explodes in a spirited dance with devilish energy.

The movement has earned a universally accepted nickname, The

Gathering of the Clans, as it is seen to epitomize the untamed soul and

vivacity of the Highland people.

Le tombeau de Couperin (The Tomb of Couperin) began as a

suite of six pieces for solo piano that Ravel initially entitled French

Suite. It was also, ironically, his last significant composition for the

piano. The work was to be a tribute to the French composer Francois

Couperin le Grand (1668-1733), one of the great figures of French

baroque music, and, more importantly, to the music of the eighteenth

century. Ravel’s work on the suite was interrupted when he was drafted

for military service in World War I. He resumed his work immediately

after his discharge from the army and completed it in 1917, at which time

he changed the title to Le tombeau de Couperin. Six of Ravel’s friends

were killed in the war and, as a tribute to them, he dedicated a movement

to each one. Two years later, in 1919, Ravel orchestrated four

movements from the suite.

The Prelude is a rich and sparkling statement of elegant,

ornamental styling, as applied to Couperin’s rhythmic weaving and the

musical spirit of the eighteenth century. The Forlane is a reiteration of a

brilliantly decorated French courtly dance that had lascivious

connotations. The effective simplicity of the Menuet supports Debussy’s

assessment of Ravel as having “the finest ears in the world,” and the

Rigaudon, under Ravel’s hands, “retains the simple rhythms, phrasing,

and homophonic texture of music to be danced” (Harvard Dictionary of

Music).

The bolero, as defined in the Salsa Web site, is “a slow, lyrical

ballad, usually about romantic themes, love and yearning—an ideal

dance for a flirt....The pains and pleasures of love are the subject of

bolero, a style of popular song and dance practiced through much of

Latin America for more than a century. In Cuba there is no love without a

bolero (love song).” Ravel’s Bolero gained popularity in America

through the orchestral version of a ballet score he wrote in 1928, on

commission from a ballet company run by the Russian dancer and

actress, Ida Rubenstein (1885-1960). Rubenstein initially asked Ravel to

orchestrate six pieces from Isaac Albeniz’ Iberia Suite. The copyright

protection on Albeniz’ work, however, prevented Ravel from carrying

through with the transcription without permission from the composer.

When Albeniz eventually gave his permission, Ravel politely declined,

preferring instead to write an original work, the now famous Bolero. The

ballet was performed at the Paris Opera in 1928, choreographed and

danced by Bronislava Nijinska (1891-1972), the sister of the great

Russian ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky (1890-1950). As part of the

classical ballet repertoire, Ravel’s Bolero remains on the active list, even

though it is performed less frequently than it was in the 1930s and 1940s.

As an instrumental work, Bolero is quite popular in the two-piano

version as well as in the often-performed orchestral version.