The National Gallery of Art (NGA) presents music from Spain in its Sunday concerts with pieces by Tomas de Victoria and Enrique Granados, featuring the CHORAL ARTS SOCIETY and the pianist DOUGLAS RIVA, a specialist in Granados music whose repertory has one of the least known pieces of the Spanish composer.

Rive will play THE SONG OF THE START, a piece that has only been performed twice since Granados composed it: the first time, it was Granados himself who played it 1911 at the PALACIO DE LA MUSICA in Barcelona, together with the first performance of his GOYESCAS. The singers were from the ORFEO CATALA.

Short thereafter, Granados traveled to the US and died on his return trip when his ship was torpedoed by a German U boat. The score ended up at a music publisher in New York where it was feared destroyed years later by a fire. It was not the case because in 2004 Douglas Riva identified the manuscript there nd bought it and he was able to introduce it again to the public at the New York church VOICES OF ASCENSION in 2007.

THE SONG OF STARS is a composition for piano, chorus and organ. Riva, who spent several years in Barcelona studying Granados, will play it again at the NGA, where every Sunday there are excellent concerts of classical music and is providing an organ for the occasion. The Choral Arts Society will have its 52 singers.

FREE TICKETS! First come – First Serve

October 11, 2009
6:00pm

National Gallery of Art – West Building (Secong Floor)
The National Gallery of Art (West Building)
401 Constitution Ave NW
Washington, D.C.
View map