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 ofthe 

West Building after 6:30 pm is not permitted.

For the convenience of concertgoers, 

the Garden Cafe remains open for light refreshments

until 6:00 pm on Sundays.

Music Department

National Gallery of Art

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, dc

wuw.nga.gov

cover: Auguste Renoir, Oarsmen at Chatou, 1879,

National Gallery ofArt, Washington, Gift of Sam A. Lewisohn

The Seventieth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,877th Concert

Pascal and Ami Roge, pianists

Presented in honor ofthe

Reopening ofthe

Nineteenth-century French galleries

March 4, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Music by Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Six Epigraphes antiques (1914)

Pour invoquer Pan, dieu du vent d’ete 

Pour un Tombeau sans nom

Pour que la Nuit soit propice

Pour la Danseuse aux crotales

Pour l’Egyptienne

Pour remercier la Pluie au matin

From Preludes, Book 1 (1909-1910)

Voiles

Le Vent dans la plaine

Les Collines d’Anacapri

La Serenade interrompue

La Cathedrale engloutie

Minstrels

Petite Suite (1886-1889)

En Bateau

Cortege

Menuet

Ballet

INTERMISSION

En Blanc et noir (1915)

Avec Emportement

Lent et sombre

Scherzando

La Mer (1903-1905)

De l’Aube a midi sur la mer

Jeux de vagues

Dialogue du vent et de la mer

The Musicians

Known worldwide for their interpretation of French piano music, Pascal and

Ami Roge specialize in music for two pianos four hands. A frequent guest

at major music festivals, this husband-and-wife team has appeared at the

Australian Festival ofChamber Music, the Beijing International Piano Festival,

England’s Petworth, Salisbury, andThaxted Festivals, Flong Kong’s Joy ofMusic

Festival, Ireland’s Music for Galway, and Italy's Incontri in Terra di Sienna.

Their recent tour ofJapan included the premiere ofAmi Suite, a new

piece for piano four hands, written especially for them by the JapaneseAmerican composer Paul Chihara. Invited with increasing frequency to perform with orchestras, the duo has played with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta,

Jyvaskyla (Finland) Symphony Orchestra, Metropolitan Orchestra of Lisbon,

Poznan Philharmonic Orchestra, and Shanghai Symphony Orchestra. Last

year they performed the premiere of a commissioned concerto for two pianos

by Matthew Hindson with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conducted by

Vladimir Ashkenazy.

Reflecting on the privilege oftouring professionally with his spouse,

Pascal Roge says: “I have always said that my ambition was to play the music

I love with the people I love; with [Ami] I have been able to continue my 

search ofsounds and colors throughout the French repertoire, but now with

four hands and two hearts.... Our emotions transform the black and white

of a double piano recital into a single colorful dream.”

Pascal and Ami Roge appear at the National Gallery by arrangement

with MusicVine Arts Management, www.musicvinearts.com.

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Program Notes

One ofthe predominant composers in the history of French music, Claude

Debussy is linked with Maurice Ravel at the heart ofthe symbolist literary

movement’s manifestation in music. Sometimes labeled “the Impressionist

composer,” Debussy did not consider himself an Impressionist; the spirituality and imagination fueling his work was more universal, although he

often alluded to symbolist poetry in his writings about his music. He had

an inquisitive eye and ear that led him to such influences as the late romantic

Russian composers Balakirev, Mussorgsky, and Tchaikovsky; the German

musical colossus Wagner; and, late in his career, oriental music, including

Javanese gamelan music. Debussy’s wide-ranging curiosity also led him to

compose around themes rooted in literature and visual art—many of his

works explicitly refer to visual images, and one of his goals was to translate

images into a soundscape. He seldom constructed entire pieces around one

tonal area, and his lush sonorities were meant to appeal more to the senses

of his listeners than to their intellect.

Debussy composed many works for orchestral ensembles, but his

compositions all began at the piano, where he was particularly skilled as a

performer. According to Debussy biographer Leon Valias (1879-1956), “He

was an original virtuoso, remarkable for the delicacy and mellowness of his

touch. He made one forget that the piano has hammers.” Pianist, composer,

and conductor Alfredo Casella (1883-1947) noted that Debussy “used the

pedals in a way all his own. He played... like no other living composer or

pianist.” Debussy’s singular playing technique is reflected in the tender,

wispy textures characteristic of his music for piano and orchestra.

In 1897 Debussy attended a staging oftwelve “living tableaux” based on

Pierre Louys’ (1870-1925) Chanson de Bilitis, which he had published in 1894,

claiming the poems to be translations of newly discovered autobiographical

poetry of Sappho. The event inspired Debussy to compose incidental music

for six ofthe tableaux for two flutes, two harps, and celesta in the form of

Six Epigraphes antiques, an atmospheric set ofsmall movements without a

definite narrative. The theme ofthe first movement, “Pour invoquer Pan, 

dieu du vent d’ete” (For Invoking Pan, God ofthe Summer Wind), recalls

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the idyllic setting of Prdude a I'apres-midi d’unfaune in its depiction of a

leisurely summer day while also referring directly to Pan, who shares the

physical attributes of a faun. “Pour un Tombeau sans nom” (For a Tomb 

without Name) is an understated elegy with high chromaticism, and “Pour

que la Nuit soit propice” (So That the Night May Be Propitious) is a delicate

nocturne. “Pour la Danseuse aux crotales” (For the Dancer with Castanets)

contains piano figuration designed to imitate the clicking sound of Spanish

castanets. “Pour l’Egyptienne” (For the Egyptian Woman) bears a rhapsodic

character, similar to music that Debussy sometimes transcribed from his

free-improvisation sessions. “Pour remercier la Pluie au matin” (For Thanking the Morning Rain) resembles a piano etude with its fast chromatic

patterns continuing underneath a variety of different melodies.

Although pianist Jane Mortier began a tradition in 1911 of performing

Debussy’s first book of Preludes as a full set, Debussy himself preferred to

perform only three or four ofthese miniature works at a time, and Pascal 

and Ami Roge follow the composer’s example in tonight’s concert. The titles

ofthe preludes are sometimes ambiguous, as in the case of “Voiles,” which

can mean either “sails” or “veils.” This prelude finds Debussy looking eastward, as he uses whole-tone scales. The opening measures of “La Cathedrale

engloutie” (The Sunken Cathedral) reflect Debussy’s affinity for the pentatonic

scale and parallel fifths. Each ofthe Prdudes intends to convey a musical

image, but the title does not appear until the end ofthe movement. Presumably the listener can develop his or her own perception ofthe music before

reading Debussy’s description. The other movements on tonight’s program

evoke the wind in the plain (“Le Vent dans la plaine”), the hills ofAnacapri

(“Les Collines d’Anacapri”), an interrupted serenade (“La Serenade interrompue”), and the singing ofminstrels.

Petite suite comes from early in Debussy’s career, and it embodies a late

Romantic style similar in character to Massenet or Delibes. It is certainly a

piece for entertainment without the same virtuosic demands as Debussy’s

other works, and for these reasons it has become a very accessible and popular

piece. The first movement, “En Bateau” (By Boat), is highly melodic and carefully voiced, and it briefly employs the whole-tone scale, as Debussy would

do with increasing frequency in his later work. The second movement,

5
“Cortege” (Procession), like “Fetes” from Images, suggests the brilliant processional of a marching band at a festival. In the “Menuet” Debussy hints

at his mature voice, incorporating accompaniment figures that dance around

the main melody, yielding a dreamlike sound. The final movement is a lively

dance alluding to late nineteenth-century French theater music.

Three poetic epigraphs comprise En Blanc et noir. Debussy wrote these

movements along with his Etudes for piano in 1915 in a quick burst of creativity.

All three exhibit great originality within the forms of a waltz, an elegy, and a

scherzo. “Lent et sombre” (slow and somber) is a memorial to Jacques Chariot, 

a friend of Debussy who died in World War 1. It evokes a wide range of emotions, with the slow passages framing an allegro section in the middle. The

final movement, “Scherzando,” is a tongue-in-cheek characterization of Igor

Stravinsky, who by 1915 was gaining some notoriety in Paris. This humorous

setting does not necessarily resemble Stravinsky’s music, although it does

recall the impish dwarffrom Ravel’s Gaspard de la null (1908). Debussy likely

intended the reference as a good-natured barb at Stravinsky’s short stature.

La Mer (The Sea) holds a place in the orchestral repertoire as a marvel of

colorful orchestration. The overwhelming effect ofthe full orchestra can

distract the listener from the work’s thematic unity and radical harmonic

progressions, but these are clarified when it is played on two pianos. A 1909

review in The Chicago Tribune indicates how dramatically La Mer ushered in

a new age in orchestral composition: “It is safe to say that few understood

what they heard and few heard anything they understood....There are no

themes distinct and strong enough to be called themes. There is nothing in

the way of even a briefmotifthat can be grasped securely enough by the ear

and brain to serve as a guiding line through the tonal maze.” Stated positively, there are, of course, themes and motifs repeated in the work, but the

rhapsodic development allows them to come and go as ifthey were being

tossed by the ocean’s waves. The evocative titles ofthe three movements can

be translated: “From Dawn to Afternoon on the Sea,” “Games of Waves,”

and “Dialogue ofthe Wind and the Sea.”

Program notes by Michael Jacko, concert aide, National Galleiy ofArt

6

Upcoming concerts at the National Gallery ofArt

Carmen Balthrop, soprano

Jose Caceres, pianist

Music by Dvorak, Greenleaf, Tchaikovsky,

and other composers

Presented in honor of

Women’s History Month

March 11, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Cyrus Forough, violinist

Stephen Ackert, pianist

Music by J. S. Bach, Beethoven,

Falla, and Handel

March 18, 2012

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court