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 of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, dc

Mailing address

2000b South Club Drive 

Landover, md 20785

www.nga.gov

The Sixty-fourth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery of Art

2,557th Concert

Anthony and Joseph Paratore

Piano Duo

January 29, 2006

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Richard Strauss (1864-1949)

Don Juan, op. 20

Arranged for two pianos four hands by Ludwig Thuille (1861-1907) 

Richard Strauss

Waltzesfrom “Der Rosenkavalter,” op. 59

Arranged for two pianos four hands by Victor Babin (1908-1972)

Richard Strauss

Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks, op. 28

Arranged for two pianos four hands by Otto Singer

INTERMISSION

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Ma mere I’oye (Mother Goose)

Pavane de la Belle au bois dormant (The Pavane of Sleeping Beauty)

Petit poucet (Hop-o’-my-thumb)

Laideronette, imperatrice des pagodes

(The Ugly Little Girl, Empress of the Pagodas)

Les entretiens de la Belle et la Bete

(The Conversations between Beauty and the Beast)

Le jardin feerique (The Fairy Garden)

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

Nutcracker Suite, op. 71a

Arranged for piano four hands by Nicolas Economou (1953-1993)

Overture miniature

Marche

Danse de la fee-dragee (Dance ofthe Sugarplum Fairies)

Danse russe trepak (Russian Dance)

Danse arabe (Arabian Dance)

Danse chinoise (Chinese Dance)

Danse des mirlitons (Dance ofthe Reed Flutes)

Valse des fleurs (Waltz ofthe Flowers)

The Musicians

Whether performing on one piano or two, Anthony and Joseph Paratore 

bring the art of duo pianism to the highest level. Bom in Boston to a family 

ofItalian descent, they began their careers as solo pianists when they were 

young. By the time Joseph appeared with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at

age seventeen, his brother Anthony had already completed a recital tour of

South America. They made their acclaimed debut as a duo in New York City

in 1973. The New York Times reviewer wrote: “Ifthere is a resurgence of duo

piano, Anthony and Joseph Paratore should find an important place in the

concert world.” Both conditions have since materialized: there has been a

renewal ofinterest in piano duos as a concert phenomenon, and the Paratore 

brothers are at the forefront ofthat movement. Joachim Kaiser, reviewing one

oftheir concerts in Munich’s SiXddeutsche Zeitung, proclaimed: “They are the

princes ofthe piano. From the beginning there is a witchcraft of ensemble

playing with a complete understanding of phrasing, breathing, and trills.”

The duo has appeared with most ofthe world’s premiere symphony

orchestras, including those of Amsterdam, Berlin, Boston, Chicago, Detroit,

New York, San Francisco, and Vienna, under such illustrious conductors

as Pierre Boulez, Christoph von Dohnanyi, Rafael Friihbeclc de Burgos,

Seiji Ozawa, Georg Solti, and Leonard Slatlcin. They have repeatedly been

invited to perform at prestigious music festivals in major cities, among

them Berlin, Lucerne, New York (the Mostly Mozart Festival), Salzburg,

and Vienna. Their concert tours have taken them to Asia, Australia,

Israel, and other distant destinations. The brothers have also appeared

on many radio and television programs such as “All Things Considered,”

“Performance Today,” the “Today Show,” and the “Tonight Show.”

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The recipients of numerous honors and awards, Anthony and Joseph

Paratore have been granted membership in the Dante Alighieri Society

and awarded the I Migliore from the Pirandello Lyceum and the George

Washington Medal of Honor. In 1992 a scholarship was established in

their name at the Boston Conservatory of Music.

Recently jazz legend Dave Brubeck entrusted the two pianists with 

the special privilege of recording all of his compositions for two pianos

four hands, including his Points ofJazz, recorded on the Koch Jazz label.

Other recordings on the same label by the Paratore brothers include

Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes with the Berlin Radio Chorus and piano

duos by Stravinsky, Gershwin, Milhaud, and Schoenberg. On the Four

Winds label, they have recorded Brahms’ Variations on a Theme by Haydn

and Sonata in F Minor for piano four hands as well as works by Debussy,

Poulenc, Ravel, and Schubert.

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Program Notes

Piano duets came into vogue in the middle ofthe eighteenth century, not

long after the piano had replaced the harpsichord as the standard keyboard

instrument in the home and on the concert stage. The medium was placed

in the international spotlight by the famous pair of child prodigies, Wolfgang

and Nannerl Mozart (1756-1791 and 1751-1829), who were presented as

a piano duo all over Europe by their enterprising father, Leopold Mozart

(1719-1787). A family portrait from about 1780 by Johann Nepomuk de la

Croce shows the two youngsters playing for their father, who holds a violin,

while a portrait oftheir mother looks down soberly from the wall behind

them. The first published music for piano four hands dates from 1777, the 

work of Sir Charles Burney (1726-1814), who also has the distinction of

having written the first sonata for piano three hands. In the nineteenth

century the great majority of music for piano four hands was transcribed 

from works for orchestra, which were otherwise rarely heard outside ofthe 

great European capitals. Composers and publishers were quick to realize

the potential market for orchestral compositions in transcription in every

town and village. Brahms’ Hungarian Dances and Dvorak’s Slavonic Dances

stand out among the original works distributed for piano duo.

Among the pioneers of music for two pianos four hands were Johann 

Christian Bach (1735-1782) and Muzio Clementi (1752-1832). The medium

reached its apogee in the works of Franz Liszt (1811-1886), who arranged

Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and both of his own symphonies for two

pianos. Important works for two pianos four hands were also composed or

arranged by Brahms, Reger, Saint-Saens, and Schumann in the nineteenth

century, and Bartolc, Busoni, Hindemith, and Stravinsky in the twentieth. 

Charles Ives (1874-1954), ever the iconoclast, wrote Three Quarter-Tone

Pieces for two pianos tuned a quarter-tone apart.

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The only original work for two pianos four hands on this program is

Ravel’s Ma mere I’oye, which the composer wrote in response to a request

from friends Ida and Cyprien Godebski. Ravel was fond oftheir children,

Mimi and Jean, both ofwhom were gifted pianists, and wrote the suite of

five duets for them. The premiere performance, however, was entrusted to

two girls who were evidently even more talented, Jeanne Lelu and Genevieve 

Durony, who performed Ma mere I’oye at the Salle Gaveau in Paris in 1910,

when they were both just ten years old. The popularity ofthe piano work

inspired Ravel to expand and orchestrate it for a ballet, which was produced

under the same title in 1912.

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