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Music Department

National Gallery of Art

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Washington, DC

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2000b South Club Drive

Landover, md 20785

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COVER! J. M.W. Turner. Mortlake Terrace, the Seat of William Moffatt, Esq.; Summer's Evening (detail). 1827,

oil on canvas. National Gallery ofArt, Washington, Andrew W. Mellon Collection

The Sixty-sixth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,642nd Concert

Amanda Pitt, soprano

David Owen Norris, pianist

Presented in honor ofJ. M. W. Turner

October 21, 2007

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Admissionfree
J. M. W. Turner is sponsored by The Exhibition Circle

ofthe National Gallery of Art. Bank of America is proud to be the

national sponsor. The exhibition is made possible in part through

the generous support ofAccess Industries. It remains on view in

the West Building until January 6, 2008.

Program

“Burning Gold—Songs for Turner”

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809)

The Sailor's Song

The Battle ofthe Nile

John Braham (1774-1856)

The Death ofNelson

Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900)

The Sailor's Grave

Sad Memories

Sigh No More, Ladies

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) 

The Splendour Falls

Roger Quilter (1877-1953)

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal

Music, When Soft Voices Die

Love’s Philosophy

INTERMISSION

Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

Dream Children

Sea Pictures

Sea Slumber Song

In Haven (Capri)

Sabbath Morning at Sea

Where Corals Lie

The Swimmer
The Musicians

The duo ofAmanda Pitt and David Owen Norris are dedicated to the art of

song. MusicWeb praised their recording of Roger Quilter premieres for

Naxos as “an important disc,” while the Sunday Times called their Elgar 

premieres on the Avie label “a treasure house.” In 2008 Pitt, Norris, and

baritone David Wilson-Johnson will release a disc offirst-time recordings

ofsong cycles by Trevor Hold.

Last year Pitt and Norris began a series ofrecitals under the general

heading “Songs and Pictures,” with concerts the National Gallery in Washington, DC, and the Djanogly Art Gallery and Concert Hall in Nottingham,

England. The series has grown to include performances throughout

England, and negotiations are under way to expand the series into other

galleries in Europe and the United States.

Amanda Pitt and David Owen Norris are founding members ofThe

Works, which gave the first performance of a new translation ofArnold

Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire in July. The production employed speciallycommissioned animated images, and made innovative use ofboth a male

and female voice to emphasize the music’s inner drama. In addition to the

Schoenberg, The Works recently gave the modem premiere ofCarl Friedrich

Cramer’s (1752-1807) newly discovered arrangement of Mozart’s C Major

Piano Concerto; a sequence of comic operas, Two Murders and a Marriage,

presented at the Buxton International Opera Festival and the Oslo Festival;

and the world premiere of Robert Walker’s Second String Quartet. In tonight’s

concert they are performing the North American premiere ofthe original

version of Edward Elgar’s Sea Pictures for soprano and piano.

Amanda Pitt recently performed in major London venues and European

festivals. Her solo recordings include music by Lili Boulanger, Leos Janacek,

and Ruth Crawford Seeger, as well as British composers Roger Quilter and

Edward Elgar. A review in the Times of a recital with David Owen Norris

stated: “Pitt put this [Schumann’s Frauenliebe und leben] across with simplicity

and conviction, her husky vibrato a natural throb ofpassion.”

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Since his last appearance at the National Gallery in 2006, Norris has

appeared for the fourth time in the bbc Proms; performed concertos on the

fortepiano in Toronto and at Yale University; given premiere broadcasts of

songs by Stravinsky, Elgar, and Mendelssohn; and performed Elgar’s Piano

Concerto. This year his CD releases include Richard Amell’s Piano Concerto

and Joseph Horowitz’ Jazz Concerto.

In 2006 two large-scale compositions by David Owen Norris received

world premieres: Prayerbook, an oratorio, and Tomorrow nor Yesterday, a cycle

ofsongs based on the poems ofJohn Donne. Norris recently completed

his second radio opera, The Jolly Roger, and is working on a piano concerto.

He is a newly appointed professor at the University of Southampton and

a visiting professor at the Royal College of Music in London.

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Program notes

Amanda Pitt and David Owen Norris have selected British music from

various periods in honor of the exhibition J. M.W. Turner; the largest and

most comprehensive retrospective ofTurner’s work ever presented in the 

United States. One ofthe greatest landscape painters in the history of art,

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851) assayed a wide range ofsubjects 

in his art, including seascapes, topographical views, historical events,

mythology, modern life, and views from his imagination in paintings and

watercolors that are among the best-known and most admired works of

the nineteenth century. Turner’s works helped define the artistic movement

known as romanticism, and his renderings ofsubtle effects oflight and

atmosphere in limitless spaces epitomized contemporary notions ofthe 

sublime. Celebrated for his prodigious talent and his technical innovations, 

Turner’s achievement was crucial not only to the romantic movement,

but also to impressionism.

Turner’s sketchbooks reveal that he loved music. In the Tabley Sketchbook no. 3, part ofTurner's bequest to the Tate Gallery, there are snatches

ofmusic notation, including a melody to be sung to the lyric “Drink to Me

Only with Thine Eyes” by Ben Jonson (1572-1637). Among Turner’s close

friends in the 1790s was the composer John Danby (1757-1798). When

Danby died, his widow, Sarah, went to live with Turner. There is no record 

oftheir having married, but a daughter was born to them in 1801. Turner

biographer James Hamilton mentions the artist’s enjoyment of Danby’s

glees and catches, which were published in 1798 in three volumes as a

memorial tribute to the composer.

David Owen Norris will explore in detail the relationship between the 

music and Turner’s art in oral program notes.

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Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

Jon Manasse, clarinetist

Jon Nakamatsu, pianist

Music by Brahms, Kovacs, Mendelssohn,

Novacek, Ravel, and Weber

October 28, 2007

Sunday Evening, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court