75TH SEASON

OF CONCERTS

NOVEMBER 26-27, 2016 • NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART
NOVEMBER 26

3:00 • West Building, West Garden Court

Eliot Fisk, guitar

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, BWV 1007-1012

Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007

Prelude

Allemande

Courante

Sarabande

Minuets I & II

Gigue

Suite No. 5 in C Minor, BWV 1011

Prelude

Allemande

Courante

Sarabande

Gavotte I & II

Gigue

Suite No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1009

Prelude

Allemande

Courante

Sarabande

Bourree I & II

Gigue

2 • National Gallery of Art

NOVEMBER 27

3:00 • West Building, West Garden Court

Eliot Fisk, guitar

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, BWV 1007-1012

Suite No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1008

Prelude

Allemande

Courante

Sarabande

Minuet I & II

Gigue

Suite No. 4 in E-flat Major, BWV 1010

Prelude

Allemande

Courante

Sarabande

Bourree I & II

Gigue

Suite No. 6 in D Major, BWV 1012

Prelude

Allemande

Courante

Sarabande

Gavotte I & II

Gigue

75th Season • 3
The Musician

Eliot Fisk is known worldwide as a charismatic performer famed for his adventurous and

virtuosic repertoire. He is also celebrated for his willingness to take art music into unusual 

venues (schools, senior centers, and even logging camps and prisons). After nearly fifty

years before the public, he remains as his mentor Andres Segovia once wrote, "at the top

line of our artistic world."

Fisk has performed as soloist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Houston

Symphony, the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Pro Arte Orchestra, the American Composers Orchestra, and numerous others around the world. He also has performed with many 

chamber music colleagues, including flutist Paula Robison, clarinetist Richard Stoltzman, 

cellist Yehuda Hanani, the late violinist Ruggiero Ricci, and the Shanghai, Juilliard, Borromeo, 

and Miro String Quartets. He has invented numerous crossover projects with Paco Pena

(flamenco guitar), Joe Pass and Bill Frisell (jazz guitar), chanteuse Ute Lemper, and Turkish 

music specialist Burhan Oecal.

The repertoire of the classical guitar has been transformed through Fisk's innumerable transcriptions, including works by Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn, Mozart, Paganini, Schubert, 

Mendelssohn, Granados, and Albeniz. In addition, numerous new works have been

dedicated to him by composers as varied as Luciano Berio, Leonardo Balada, Robert Beaser,

Nicholas Maw, George Rochberg, Daniel Bernard Roumain, and Kurt Schwertsik.

Fisk was the last direct pupil of Andres Segovia and also studied interpretation with

the legendary harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick at Yale University, from which he graduated

summa cum laude in 1976, and where he founded the guitar department at the Yale School

of Music.

Described by one New York Times headline as a "Fiery Missionary to the Unconverted,"

Fisk is a professor at the Universitat Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria, and at the New 

England Conservatory in Boston, where he received the Krasner Award as "Teacher of the

Year" in 2010. Fisk founded and serves as artistic director of Boston GuitarFest, an annual

cross-disciplinary event cosponsored by the New England Conservatory and Northeastern

University. In summer 2014, Fisk toured China, performing with his wife, classical guitarist

Zaira Meneses, and the couple's young daughter, pianist Raquel Fisk.

4 • National Gallery of Art

Program Notes

The great Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn (1606-1669) and the father of Western music

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), have always seemed to me to be kindred spirits.

Although separated chronologically — Rembrandt was a contemporary of Bach's illustrious

predecessor and occasional inspiration, Johann Jakob Froberger (1660 -1667) —the two

artists seem united by a seriousness of purpose, a unique combination of discipline and

depth of feeling, and above all an ability to speak a sort of subjective truth about the human 

condition. In his sense of rectitude, order, proportion, and formal perfection, Rembrandt

seems to me to be Bach's true counterpart in the history of art.

Death was a constant companion for both artists: Bach was orphaned by the age

of ten, lost his first wife to an illness, and saw many of his numerous children die before 

adulthood. The shadow of death pursued Rembrandt as well, and while he survived various

epidemics, he lost many family members.

Bach did not face the dramatic financial reversals or public condemnation of his

private life that Rembrandt endured, but he had more than his share of run-ins with

less-cultured authority. He was accused of playing "too long" or "too short" in church

services, "confusing" the congregation with "strange" harmonies, insulting a bad bassoon

player, and losing a portion of his public because of his impenetrable counterpoint and

fearless contemplation of the dark side of human nature.

The Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello are one of many examples of Bach's ability to

leapfrog his contemporaries into the future. These unique works that span the entire gamut

of human feeling, from darkest depression to exultant joy, remain unrivaled in the entire

literature for solo cello. Ironically, not a note of the cello music has survived in Bach's own 

hand, only his score of his transcription for baroque lute of the Fifth Suite, the renamed 

"Pieces pour la luth,” BWV 995. Still this genius transcription gives us an idea of what sort of 

revision Bach might have made had he arranged the entire set.

In my own efforts to embrace these epic masterpieces I have tried to fill out harmonies and add counterpoint and ornaments in a way that seems consistent with baroque 

practice and Bach's own penchant for revisiting and transforming both his own works and

that of others. Nothing I have done in over a half a century of study of the guitar has been

more challenging or rewarding than this effort.

My thanks to the National Gallery for the opportunity to offer these versions in this

magical and inspiring space, in this indispensable cathedral of the arts that reminds us so

powerfully of the best of our shared humanity.

Program notes by Eliot Fisk

75th Season * 5
Upcoming Events of the SeventyFifth Season of The William

Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot

Belin Concerts

Donal Fox, piano 

Presented in honor of 

Stuart Davis: In Full Swing

December 3,12:30, 2:00, and 3:30

West Building, Gallery M78

Fox Wolf Duo

Virtuosos in Dialogue

December 4, 3:30

West Building, West Garden Court

Washington Performing Arts

Children of the Gospel Choir

Holiday Caroling

December 10,1:30 and 2:30

Rotunda

Georgetown Day School

Holiday Caroling

December 11,1:30 and 2:30

Rotunda

Tempesta di Mare

Philadelphia Baroque Orchestra

Baroque Holiday Concert

December 11, 4:00

West Building, West Garden Court

Xaverian FHigh School

Holiday Caroling

December 17,1:30 and 2:30

Rotunda

Danu

A Christmas Gathering: Feile Na Nollag

December 18, 2:00 and 4:00

West Building, West Garden Court

General Information

Admission to the National Gallery of Art

and all of its programs is free of charge,

except as noted.

The use of cameras or recording equipment

during the performance is not allowed.

Please be sure that all portable electronic

devices are turned off.

Concerts are made possible in part

through the generosity of donors to the

National Gallery of Art through The Circle. 

Reserved seating is available in recognition

of their support. Please contact the

development office at (202) 842-6450 or

circle@nga.gov for more information.

www.nga.gov

www.instagram.com/ngadc

www.twitter.com/ngadc

www.facebook.com/nationalgalleryofart

The department of music produced these

program notes. Copyright © 2016 Board of

Trustees, National Gallery of Art, Washington

Cover Rembrandt van Rijn, Man with a

Sheet of Music (detail), 1633, National

Gallery of Art, Washington, Corcoran 

Collection (William A. Clark Collection)

Back cover West Building, Constitution

Avenue entrance, viewed from Sixth Street nw,

1941, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 

Gallery Archives