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: - : : 'V. I. V^2“

wMSissi*

The Seventy-first Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

2,929th Concert

Inscape Chamber Orchestra 

Richard Scerbo, conductor

Monica Soto-Gii, mezzo-soprano

March 17, 2013

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court

Admissionfree
Program

Arthur Honegger (1892-1955)

Pastorale d’ete

Maurice Delage (1879-1961)

Quatre Poemes hindous

Madras

Lahore

Benares

Jeypur

Darius Milhaud (1892-1974)

Symphonie no. 3, op. 71, (Serenade)

From Symphonies de chambre

INTERMISSION

Milhaud

Symphonie no. 2, op. 49, (Pastorale),

From Symphonies de chambre

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)

Trois Poemes de Stephane Mallarme

Soupir

Placet futile

Surgi de la croupe et du bond

Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)

Herodiade

The Musicians

INSCAPE CHAMBER ORCHESTRA

Founded in 2004 by artistic director Richard Scerbo, Inscape Chamber

Orchestra performs concerts that engage audiences in the exploration of

both standard and non-standard works. The ensemble’s continuing commitment to commissioning and performing new works by emerging American 

composers has resulted in numerous world premieres. Inscape members

regularly perform with the Delaware, National, Philadelphia, Richmond, and

Virginia symphony orchestras as well as the Washington Opera Orchestra. 

Some are members ofthe premiere Washington service bands, and lnscape

alumni are members of orchestras across the United States and abroad.

Inscape is the ensemble-in-residence at the Episcopal Church ofthe

Redeemer in Bethesda, Maryland, where it presents an an nual series of concerts. In addition to its 2011 concert at the National Gallery, it has appeared

at Montgomery College’s Parilla Performing Arts Center and at Wintergreen

Performing Arts Center. Members ofthe Inscape Chamber Orchestra participating in tonight’s concert are:

Rebecca Racusin, violin

Sarah D’Angelo, violin

Megan Yanilc, viola

Jessica Sammis, cello

David George, bass

Cara Fleck, harp

Tim MeReynolds, piano

Susanna Loewy, flute

Kasumi Leonard,flute

Evan Solomon, clarinet and bass clarinet

Adrienne Hodges, clarinet

Bethany Slater, oboe

Ben Greanya, bassoon

Mark Wakefield, hom

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RICHARD SCERBO

With the founding ofthe Inscape Chamber Orchestra in 2004 and the Inscape

Chamber Music Project a few years later, artistic director Richard Scerbo set

out to reach new audiences by performing programs that relate to current

events and aesthetic trends. Scerbo cofounded his first orchestra, the Philharmonia Ensemble, in 2000 with violinist Dale Barltrop. In 2003 he made his

operatic debut conducting Dominick Argento’s A Water Bird Talk with the

Philharmonia Ensemble and Handel’s Xerxes with the Maryland Opera Studio. 

A graduate ofthe University of Maryland, he studied conducting with James

Ross and bassoon with Daniel Matsukawa, Sue Heineman, and Linda Harwell. 

He has attended conducting programs in Austria and the Czech Republic, working both with the International Festival Orchestra, Kromeriz, and the Bohuslav

Martinu Philharmonic. Guided in his conducting studies by Leonard Slatkin,

Heinz Fricke, Gustav Meier, and Johannes Schlaefli, Scerbo is the associate

artistic director ofthe National Orchestral Institute, a summer festival devoted 

to orchestral musicianship and professional development for musicians on

the threshold oftheir careers.

MONICA SOTO-GII

A concert soloist and a versatile performer in opera, operetta, and oratorio,

mezzo-soprano Monica Soto-Gil has performed at the Academy of Music 

in Philadelphia, Artisphere, the Central City Opera House, Clarice Smith

Performing Arts Center, and the New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall.

Recent operatic highlights include appearances with Bel Cantanti Opera and

the Maryland Opera Studio as well as at Central City Opera’s 2012 Summer

Festival, where she returns this summer for her second season as an apprentice. She has also enjoyed guest performances with the Capital City Symphony

and Young Artists ofAmerica.

Soto-Gil received her bachelor ofmusic degree from the New England

Conservatory of Music in vocal performance under the tutelage ofthe late

Edward Zambara, and her master ofmusic degree as a member ofthe Maryland Opera Studio, where she studied with Delores Ziegler. She currently

studies with Elizabeth Daniels and resides in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area, where she teaches and performs regularly.

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Program Notes

Arthur Honegger's Pastorale d’ete depicts the tranquility ofthe Swiss composer’s

vacations to that country’s Alpine region in 1920. One of Honegger’s earliest

successes in the concert hall, it received the Prix Verley, an award created by

composer Albert Verley (1867-1959) to be granted by the audience (ifit voted 

to do so) on the occasion of a work’s premiere performance. Subtitled “Poeme

symphonique,” the Pastorale d’ete is prefaced with an inscription by Arthur

Rimbaud: “J'ai embrasse l’aube d’ete” (I have embraced the summer dawn). 

It is scored for a chamber ensemble consisting ofstrings, single woodwinds,

and horn.

Originally destined to become a shipping cleric, Maurice Delage fell in

with a group of French writers, musicians, and painters known as “Les

Apaches,” who met every Saturday at the home of painter Paul Sordes. It was 

here that Delage first encountered Maurice Ravel, who quickly took him on

as his student. Ravel would later found his own group of composers, the

Societe Musciale Independente, who shared his appreciation of Delage’s

unique talent. While Delage’s work gained the appreciation ofthe members

ofthe Societe, the public did not come to understand his music fully until

1913, when the Societe presented a concert that included Stravinsky’s Three

Japanese Lyrics, Ravel’s Trois Poemes de Stephane Mallarme, and Delage’s

Quatres Poemes hindous, inserted at the last moment as a replacement for 

Schonberg’s Pierrot Lunaire. Following the performance, music critics and

composers alike commented on Delage’s talent. Quatres Poemes hindous was 

clearly influenced by Delage’s travels to South Asia: each movement bears

the name of a different city in what was then the “Empire ofthe Indies.”

Poems 1 and iv were written by the tenth-century poet Bhartrihari; poem 11

is an adaptation of a poem by Heinrich Heine; and poem ill is based on an

anonymous story ofthe birth of Buddha.

One ofthe most prolific composers ofthe twentieth century, Darius

Milhaud was born in France and studied at the Paris Conservatory with Charles 

Widor and privately with Vincent D’Indy. Milhaud’s writing combines elements

ofboth polytonality and jazz. Sweeping across Europe in the 1920s, jazz became

one ofAmerica’s first musical exports. Milhaud’s exposure to jazz became quite

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discernable after a trip to the United States in 1922, where he encountered

what he termed “real jazz” on the streets of Harlem. Tonight’s program provides an opportunity to compare and contrast Milhaud’s Deuxieme Symphonie,

op. 49, which dates from 1918, with his Troisieme Symphonie, op. 71, which 

dates from 1921. Both exhibit strong elements of polytonality and bitonality.

Maurice Ravel was working side-by-side with Igor Stravinsky in the 

spring of 1913 on a joint commission from Serge Diaghilev. Stravinsky had

recently completed his Three Japanese Lyrics, a short work for voice and chamber ensemble, and during their collaboration decided to show Ravel one of

the completed movements. This piece provided Ravel with the initial inspiration for his Trois Poemes de Stephane Mallarme. (Ravel subsequently dedicated

the first movement to Stravinsky; movements 11 and 111 are dedicated to

French composers Florent Schmitt and Erik Satie, respectively.) Many composers have been taken in by the intoxicating brilliance of Mallarme’s poetry,

including, most famously, Claude Debussy, whose Prelude a I’apres-midi d’un

faune (Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun) is based on a Mallarme poem of

the same name. Difficult to translate, Mallarme’s poetry is constructed not

only through the meaning ofthe words, but also through the sound relationships between words. With so much based on the phonology ofthe spoken 

French, it is nearly impossible to recreate these subtleties in translation.

Hindemith’s Herodiade was written on a commission from Elizabeth

Sprague Coolidge, the grand dame of American music patronage, for music

to be choreographed by Martha Graham. After rejecting Graham’s first idea

for a script, Hindemith settled on an exploration of a scene from Stephane 

Mallarme’s enigmatic poem Herodiade. Ever the thorough scholar as well as

composer, Hindemith provided an exhaustive descriptive preface to the 

score, excerpted here:

With Herodiade an attempt was made to mould into one single

concentrated form words, poetic idea, lyric expression, and

music, without using the most commonly used and most

natural means for such a fusion: Song. Since the music was

written for the stage— Martha Graham has performed it in the

form of a dance many times—the omnipotent factor ofthe

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singing voice would only have distracted the spectator’s attention from the scene. Hence the desired congruence of poetry

and music could only be achieved by giving the melodic lines

that a singer would have sung to the instruments ofthe orchestra. Such an “orchestral recitation” could follow the text literally,

even to the point of using the typical cadences of French poetry

as a stimulant for the musical structure— it furthermore would

free the composer from the limitations ofthe human voice

without renouncing its power of declamation and articulation.

And finally the melodies could be colored in ever changing tints, 

and the entire range from the double bass’s lowest tones to the

flute’s highest could be used. Such a many-sided expansion of

musical melody, although lacking the human directness ofvocal

expression but adorned with the polished and brittle artificiality

ofinstrumental motion, would it not be the adequate means of

accompanying Mallarme’s wonderfully exalted but likewise

polished, brittle, and artificial creation?

The text is a dialogue; the music tries to emphasize and to

intensify its effects. A dialogue in which a woman, Herodiade,

facing unknown (and perhaps unknowable) emotions, strives at

an articulate expression of her reactions, supported and contradicted by her old nurse... .Throughout the piece the nurse is

characterized by a soft tune ofthe string instruments while

Herodiade’s extremely erratic, expressive, and symbolistic

sentences are given to all the instruments, either in soloistic or

ensemble form.

Hindemith’s Herodiade received its premiere performance on October 30,

1944 at the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library ofCongress under Graham’s

dance title Mirror before Me. Also premiered on the same program were

Aaron Copland’s Appalachian Spring and Darius Milhaud’s Jeux de printemps.

Program notes by Richard Scerbo

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