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.

Music Department

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue nw

Washington, DC

www.nga.gov

Concerts are made possible in part through the generosity of donors

to the National Gallery ofArt through The Circle. Reserved seating is

available in recognition oftheir support. Please contact the development

office at (202) 842-6450 or circle@nga.gov for more information.

cover: Paul Signac, Barges on the Seine at Samois, 1900, watercolor and

gouache over black chalk, National Gallery ofArt, Washington, Dyke Collection

\fi

The Seventy-first Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,939th Concert

Nima Sarkechik, pianist

Presented in honor of Color, Line, Light: French Drawings,

Watercolors, and Pastelsfrom Delacroix to Signac

April 17, 2013

Wednesday, 12:10 pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Admissionfree
Program

Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Reflets dans l’eau (Reflections in the Water)

From Images, Book 1 (1905)

Johannes Brahms (1833-1897)

Twenty-Eight Variations on a Theme ofPaganini, op. 35 (1863)

Debussy

Hommage a Rameau (Tribute to Rameau)

From Images, Book 1

Franz Liszt (1811-1886)

Mephisto-Valse no. 1 (1859-1862)

Debussy

Mouvement

From Images, Book 1

Liszt

Transcendental Etude no. 4 in D Minor (“Mazeppa”)

Debussy

Tierces (Thirds)

From Preludes, Book 11

This concert is made possible in part by supportfrom the Cultural

Services ofthe French Embassy in Washington, dc, and Safran usa

The Musician

NIMA SARKECHIK

Still in his mid-twenties, French-Iranian pianist Nima Sarkechik has

established himself as a pianist of extraordinary musical maturity and

remarkable technical skills. A graduate ofthe Paris Conservatory, he won 

first prize at the international piano competition named for Princess Lalla

Meryem in Rabat, Morocco, and went on to take the public and jury prizes

at Geneva’s Jeudis de Piano Competition. A veteran ofmany music festivals and concert hall appearances, he made his festival debut in 2005 at

the International Piano Festival at La Roque d’Antheron and his concert

hall debut at the Theatre des Champs Elysees in Paris. Other festivals

in which he has appeared include the cima Festival, Festival d’Enghien, 

Festival du Gresivaudan, Festival de Radio-France, and Festival des Serres

d’Auteuil. He has played at Lincoln Center in New York City as well as

in many of France’s most prestigious concert venues, including the congressional palaces in Ajaccio and Strasbourg, Musee d’Orsay, Museum

of Grenoble, and Palais du Pharo in Marseille. Outside France, he has

performed in Luxembourg (Neumiinster Abbey Festival), Portugal (Azores

Festival), and Switzerland (Saint Ursanne Festival) as well as at festivals

in Canada, Morocco, and Turkey. Sarkechik’s recording with Zig-Zag

Records ofmusic by Chopin and Dufourt received enthusiastic reviews

in Diapason and Monde de la Musique.

3
Program Notes

Drawn from the collection ofJames T. Dyke, one ofthe most astute American collectors ofnineteenth- and twentieth-century French works on paper,

Color, Line, Light: French Drawings, Watercolors, and Pastelsfrom Delacroix

to Signac includes sheets he and his wife, Helen L. Porter, have given to the 

National Gallery ofArt as well as others acquired by the Gallery with funds

they donated. Showcasing the broad development ofmodem draftsmanship in France, the exhibition includes drawings and watercolors by French 

artists working from 1830 to 1930—including Delacroix, Monet, Degas,

Cezanne, and Signac—and reveals a rich diversity ofsubjects, styles, and

techniques from romanticism and realism through the impressionists,

Nabis, and neo-impressionists. For his recital in honor ofthe exhibition,

Nima Sarkechik has selected music from romantic composers Brahms 

and Liszt, both ofwhom expressed great admiration for the paintings

of Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863), and Claude Debussy, who was, like all

Frenchmen of his time, under the spell ofboth impressionist and postimpressionist artists.

Taking his cue from the symbolist poet Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867),

Debussy composed numerous short pieces that are perfect musical manifestations ofsymbolism, with poetic reference to visual images and emphasis

on mysterious harmony. He wrote that his Images featured “the newest

discoveries in harmonic chemistry.” Like many poets he admired, Debussy

chose to publish the pieces in series that he called “books.” Book 1 ofthe

series Images begins with “Reflets dans l’eau,” in which repetitive rhythms

evoke the sound and feel of gently lapping waves. Flowing arpeggios followed by pauses suggest the alternation of disturbance ofthe water and

moments ofstillness when reflections can be seen. The slow dripping of

final drops—perhaps from the stowed oar of a boat—and the gentle ripples 

they create bring the piece to a close.

The second and third pieces in the same collection, “Hommage a

Rameau” and “Mouvement,” are also included in today’s program. Debussy

wrote the homage to Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683-1764) while he was

4

studying the baroque composer’s opera Lesfetes de Polymnie (1753). The 

sparse texture ofthe piano piece references Rameau’s own keyboard music, 

which was written for the harpsichord. “Mouvement” is both a study in

perpetual motion and an exploration ofsyncopated rhythms and melodies 

built on a whole-tone scale.

Johannes Brahms learned of Delacroix’s importance for romanticism

in art through two ofhis acquaintances, the German romantic painters

Anselm Feuerbach (1829-1880) and Adolph Menzel (1815-1905), both of

whom were openly indebted to the French master. Brahms was also well

aware that Delacroix had painted portraits oftwo ofhis musical heroes, 

Frederic Chopin (1810-1849) and Nicolo Paganini (1782-1840). The latter 

musician, whose career as a violinist and composer rivaled that of Liszt,

inspired both Liszt and Brahms to write variations on melodies that Paganini had composed and improvised upon in concert.

Originally published under the title Studiesfor Pianoforte: Variations on

a Theme ofPaganini, Brahms’ variations use Paganini’s Caprice no. 24 in A

Minor as the theme. Composed for the German piano virtuoso Carl Tausig

(1841-1871), the work is uncharacteristically showy for Brahms. His close

friend Clara Schumann, to whom he almost always submitted his works

for comment before publication, nicknamed it Hexenvariationen (Witch’s

Variations) because ofits difficulty. The twenty-eight variations are grouped 

in two “books,” each ofwhich begins with a statement ofthe theme. The

final variation in each “book” is the most virtuosic and climactic.

In 1830, at an early point in his meteoric career as a concert pianist, 

Franz Liszt found himselfin a position to commission a portrait of himself, 

and wasted no time in contacting Delacroix, his first choice among the 

many artists with whom he was acquainted and whose work he admired. 

The pianist and the artist had met at a Paris salon maintained by Dutch 

painter Ary Scheffer (1795-1858) and frequented by Gioacchino Rossini and

George Sand. Both Liszt and Delacroix wrote enthusiastically about the 

salon, where romantic ideas and ideals, then still relatively fresh, dominated

the serious conversation.

5
A typical example of program music, in which the composer conveys

a story through descriptive music, Liszt’s Mephisto-Valse no. 1 describes 

an episode from the Faust legend as told by Nikolaus Lenau (1802-1850).

The following program note, provided by Lenau, appeared in the first

printed score:

There is a wedding feast in progress in the village inn, with

music, dancing, carousing. Mephistopheles and Faust pass by,

and Mephistopheles induces Faust to enter and take part in the

festivities. Mephistopheles snatches the violin from the hands

of a lethargic fiddler and draws from it indescribably seductive

and intoxicating strains. The amorous Faust whirls about with a

full-blooded village beauty in a wild dance; they waltz in mad

abandon out ofthe room, into the open, away into the woods. The 

sounds ofthe fiddle grow softer and softer, and the nightingale

warbles his love-laden song.

Liszt’s fourth Transcendental Etude was inspired by Victor Hugo’s

(1802-1885) dramatic poem “Mazeppa.”

As when a mortal—Genius’ prize, alack!

Is, living, bound upon thy fatal back,

Thou reinless racing steed!

In vain he writhes, mere cloud upon a star,

Thou bearest him as went, Mazeppa, far 

Out ofthe flow’ry mead,—

So—though thou speed’st implacable, (like him,

Spent, pallid, torn, bruised, weary, sore and dim,

As if each stride the nearer bring

Him to the grave)—when comes the time—

After the fall, he rises — KING!

6

The composer follows the poet closely in the etude, another example

of program music. The octaves, flurrying thirds, and sweeping chromatic 

scales and arpeggios evoke the image of a horse galloping in a cloud of dust. 

The presentation ofthe theme becomes less forceful with each reintroduction, alluding to the horse’s waning physical condition. But once more

the horse, in an unexpected burst of energy, gallops faster than ever, as the

tempo marking is changed to “Allegro deciso,” and the pianist is called upon

to play a variation ofthe original theme at a breakneck tempo. A grandiose 

finale is Liszt’s response to the last verse ofthe poem.

Program notes by Stephen Ackert, head, music department,

National Gallery ofArt

Next Concert at the National Gallery ofArt

Mykola Suk, pianist

With resident musicians from the National Gallery ofArt

and the Phillips Collection

Music by Beethoven

April 21, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court