The Sixty-eighth Season of

The William Nelson Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin 

Concerts

National Gallery ofArt

[Cezanne:

2,767th Concert

Karin Paludan, soprano

Danielle DeSwert Hahn, pianist

February 10, 2010

Wednesday, 12:10pm

West Building Lecture Hall

Admissionfree
Program

Music by George Gershwin (1898-1937)

Rialto Ripples Rag

(George Gershwin and Will Donaldson)

I'll Build a Stairway to Paradise

Somebody Loves Me

But Notfor Me

Love Walked In

Love Is Here to Stay

They All Laughed

They Can't Take That Away

So Am I

From Piano Rolls Recorded by Gershwin 

Transcribed by George Litterest

Someone to Watch over Me

Blah, Blah, Blah

My Ship

Swanee

From Piano Rolls Recorded by Gershwin 

Transcribed by George Litterest

Summertime

By Strauss
The Musicians

KARIN PALUDAN

Soprano Karin Paludan enjoys a varied career in opera, operetta, and musical theater as

well as on the concert stage and in the teaching studio. She has been a featured performer

with the Utah Festival Opera Company, singing the roles ofMusetta in La Boheme, and

Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus. Other roles include Rosellen in Seymour Barab’s Phillip

Marshall, a performance that brought high praise from the composer; Kate Pinkerton in

Madama Butterfly, which she performed on tour with New York City Opera; and the role

ofDuck #2 in Henry Mollicone and Sheldon Hamick’s Coyote Tales, which she created 

at the Lyric Opera ofKansas City. Recent performances include Rosalinda in Die

Fledermaus with Western Plains Opera, performances ofMozart’s Coronation Mass and

Exsultate, jubilate and a recital, “On the Wings of Shakespeare,” at the Harman 

Shakespeare Theater in Washington, DC.

An honors graduate with a double major in voice and theater from the University

ofKansas, Paludan has received rave reviews for her portrayals ofHelena in A

Midsummer Night’s Dream, Eliza in Shaw’s Pygmalion and Josephine in HMS Pinafore.

Singing with “sultry authority” according to the Kansas City Star, she performed as a

guest artist in the Heartland Men’s Chorus’s salute to Gershwin. She tours throughout the 

United States with “For Art for Love,” a recital she conceived to bring the audience and

the classical performer closer together. Paludan also tours Virginia, Maryland, and

Washington, DC, for the Washington Performing Arts Society’s concerts in schools and

residency programs. Upcoming engagements include recitals at the Atlas Theater and the 

Harman Shakespeare Theater and a return to Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus. A pupil of

Inci Bashar, Pauldan has won both district and regional awards in the Metropolitan Opera 

National Council competition.
DANIELLE DESWERT HAHN

Brussels-born pianist Danielle DeSwert Hahn is a freelance collaborative pianist and

coach and the music program specialist at the National Gallery ofArt. She has worked as

a pianist and coach with the Ash Lawn Highland Opera Festival, Chautauqua Opera,

Indianapolis Opera, Kentucky Opera, the New Orleans Opera Association, Portland 

(Oregon) Opera, the San Francisco Opera Center, Sarasota Opera, and the Washington 

National Opera. From 2004-2006 she was the principal repetiteur with the Baltimore 

Opera Company and Washington Concert Opera.

She performs regularly in chamber music and voice recitals, including 

performances at the Arts Club ofWashington, the Jewish Community Center of Greater

Washington, the Kennedy Center, the Mexican Institute ofCulture, the National Gallery,

the Russian Embassy, and the White House. She is principal pianist with the Inscape 

Chamber Music Project. She holds a master ofmusic degree from the University of

Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she studied with Martin Katz, and a bachelor ofmusic 

degree from the University ofCalifornia, Santa Barbara. She also studied with Warren 

Jones and Anne Epperson at the Music Academy ofthe West and was an apprentice 

coach with the Washington Opera, working with Placido Domingo.
Program Notes

This concert ofmusic by George Gershwin is one ofseveral that are planned for

presentation during the period when paintings from the collection ofChester Dale (1883—

1962) are on special exhibition on the Ground Floor ofthe West Building. Dale and his

wife, Maud, were active New York socialites who attended and sometimes hosted the 

most fashionable parties held in the upper west side. One ofthe few musicians who also

frequented those gatherings was George Gershwin, who by 1925 had achieved sufficient 

fame and wealth just from the publication and frequent performance ofhis Rhapsody in

Blue to afford a townhouse in the upper west side and the social life that went with it. It is

known that he and Chester Dale were acquainted with one another and that it was

Gershwin’s encounter with the art in Dale’s apartment in the Park Lane Hotel that 

inspired him to collect art himself and develop his skills as a painter.

Dale was an astute businessman who made his fortune on Wall Street in the bond 

market. He thrived on forging deals and translated much ofthis energy and talent into his 

art collecting, a passion that was encouraged by his wife, who was the daughter of an

artist. Dale acquired a magnificent collection ofFrench and American paintings from the

late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which he bequeathed in 1962 to the

National Gallery. Among the masterpieces included are Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot’s

Forest ofFontainebleau (1834), Auguste Renoir’s A Girl with a Watering Can (1876),

Mary Cassatt’s Boating Party (1893/1894), Edouard Manet’s Old Musician, Pablo

Picasso’s Family ofSaltimbanques (1905), and George Bellows’ Blue Morning (1909).

Other artists represented include Paul Cezanne, Salvador Dali, Edgar Degas, Vincent van 

Gogh, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, and Claude Monet.

An incident from one ofthe encounters between Dale and Gershwin is recorded in

notes that Dale left behind, which were edited and reproduced in an autobiography by 

John Walker, who was the director ofthe National Gallery when it received the Dale

bequest:

“I bumped into George somewhere I can’t remember now. He said,

‘Oh, Chester, I understand you got a lot ofswell pictures. I’d like
to see them.’ I said, “It’s OK with me, George, come over any time 

it’s convenient for you....’ So George, and I think his brother and

somebody else, I don’t remember, came in for cocktails. Just

where we were in the morning room there happened to be a

Cezanne right near the door called Estaque....[Editor’s note:

Cezanne’s Houses in Provence: The Riaux Valley near VEstaque

belonged at the time to Paul Mellon. Dale may have been speaking 

of a Cezanne painting from his collection that was not among those 

bequeathed to the Gallery.] George said, ‘My God, that’s a

wonderful picture!’ I said, ‘What the hell do you know about

pictures?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘It’s a Cezanne, isn’t it?’ I said, ‘Sure,

it’s a Cezanne.. ..Are you interested in art outside of your great

art?’ He said, ‘Yes, Chester, I’m crazy about pictures....’ And he 

proceeded to tell me some things about Cezanne that even I didn’t

know.

I said, ‘Now look, George, if you feel that way, why don’t

you go to the piano and play me a Cezanne...?’ So he went to the

piano... .1 haven’t got any more idea than the man in the moon 

what he played, but emotionally, there was Cezanne to the both of

us.” (John Walker, Self-portrait with Donors: Confessions ofan

Art Collector, 1974, Boston, Little, Brown & Co.)

From Impressionism to Modernism: The Chester Dale Collection includes eightyfour ofthe finest examples from the collection and remains on view at the Gallery until

July 31, 2011.

George Gershwin the songwriter worked in a medium that did not encourage 

innovation, but he found a distinctive personal style and created songs that remained 

popular even as fashions changed. From his exposure to jazz musicians and his own work 

as a jazz pianist, Gershwin developed an affinity for eight-bar phrases and an aggressive, 

swinging beat, with accents occurring on weak and strong beats alike. His personal 

touches included more frequent modulations than were normally heard in improvised
jazz, occasional extreme modulations to distantly related keys, and chromatic melodies. 

Some ofGershwin’s songs required the performer to take on rhythmic complexities that 

were unprecedented for classically trained singers ofhis time.

Someone to Watch over Me is an early example of collaboration with Ira

Gershwin as lyricist and features the title as a repeated element in the refrain and the final

words ofthe song. It is one ofthe songs in this program that were already written when 

Gershwin became acquainted with Chester Dale, and may well have been among the

pieces Gershwin played at the parties at which both ofthem were present in the late 

1920s.

Program notes by Stephen Ackert, head ofthe music department, National Gallery ofArt
Next Week at the National Gallery ofArt

Ritz Chamber Players

Music by Perkinson and other African American composers 

Presented in honor ofAfrican American History Month

February 14, 2010

Sunday, 6:30 pm

West Building, West Garden Court 

[Dingbat]

Suitland High School String Orchestra

Darryl Hunt, guest conductor

Music by Mozart and other composers

February 17, 2010

Wednesday, 12:10pm

East Building Auditorium

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.

Music Department 

National Gallery ofArt

Sixth Street and Constitution Avenue NW 

Washington, DC

www.nga.gov