78TH SEASON OF

CONCERTS

national gallery of art | october 20, 2019
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PROGRAM

2

Ran Dank and Soyeon Kate Lee, pianists

October 20, 2019 | 3:30

West Building, West Garden Court

Claude Debussy (1862 – 1918)

Selections from Préludes, Books 1 and 2 (1909 – 1910; 1912 – 1913)

Bruyères (Heather/Town in Eastern France)

Ce qu’a vu le vent d’ouest (What the West Wind Has Seen)

Minstrels

La puerta del vino (Wine Gate)

Soyeon Kate Lee, piano

Claude Debussy 

L’isle joyeuse (The Joyful Island) 1904

Soyeon Kate Lee, piano

Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 – 1943)

Selections from Études-Tableaux, op. 39 (1916)

No. 1 in C Minor

No. 2 in A Minor

No. 3 in F-sharp Minor

No. 8 in D Minor

No. 9 in D Major

Ran Dank, piano

Intermission

Marc-André Hamelin (b. 1961)

Tango (2019) *

Ran Dank and Soyeon Kate Lee, piano

Igor Stravinsky (1882 – 1971)

Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring) (1913)

Ran Dank and Soyeon Kate Lee, piano

Ran Dank and Soyeon Kate Lee, photo by Lisa-Marie Mazzucco

 * World premiere 
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THE MUSICIANS

Soyeon Kate Lee

First-prize winner of the 2010 Naumburg International Piano Competition and the 

2004 Concert Artist Guild International Competition, Korean-American Soyeon Kate 

Lee has been lauded by the New York Times as a pianist with “a huge, richly varied 

sound, a lively imagination and a firm sense of style,” and by the Washington Post for 

her “stunning command of the keyboard.”

Lee has been rapturously received as guest soloist with the Cleveland and the 

London Symphony Orchestras, as well as with the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, 

the San Diego Symphony, and the Orquestra de València, including performances 

under the batons of Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jahja Ling, Jorge Mester, and OttoWerner Mueller. Recent recital appearances include New York City programs at Carnegie 

Hall’s Zankel and Weill Recital Halls, Merkin Concert Hall, Alice Tully Hall, and Finland’s 

Maanta Music Festival. A Naxos recording artist, her discography spans recordings of 

Scarlatti, Liszt, and Scriabin, with upcoming releases of Clementi Sonatas, as well as 

another volume of Scarlatti Sonatas. 

Lee is the cofounder and artistic director of Music by the Glass, a concert series 

dedicated to bringing together young professionals in New York City. She is an associate 

professor of music in piano at the Cincinnati-College Conservatory of Music. She lives 

in Cincinnati with her husband, pianist Ran Dank, and their children, Noah and Ella.

Ran Dank

Ran Dank’s recent programs have included a recital at the Santa Fe Chamber Music 

Festival, performing Frederic Rzewski’s tour-de-force of thirty-six variations: The People 

United Will Never Be Defeated, followed by appearances at the Bridgehampton Chamber 

Music Festival and a duo recital with pianist Soyeon Kate Lee at the Cooperstown Summer 

Music Festival. Dank and Lee were also special guest performers at the Santa Fe 

Chamber Music Festival’s 2018 Gala. Dank’s past seasons have featured appearances 

with the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra and Eckart Preu, the Portland Symphony and 

Ken-David Masur, and the Kansas City Symphony and Michael Stern. He performed 

chamber music with the Amernet Quartet at Maverick Concerts and had duo appearances with pianist Soyeon Kate Lee at the Smithsonian Institution, Cincinnati’s Linton 

Music, and (Le) Poisson Rouge in New York City. Solo recitals included the Gilmore 

Piano Festival, New York City’s Town Hall, the Skaneateles Chamber Music Festival, and 

Maverick Concerts with the Shanghai Quartet.

Dank is the recipient of numerous honors, including from the Naumburg Piano 

Competition and the Sydney International Piano Competition, as well as First Prize 

winner of the Hilton Head International Piano Competition.

Claude Debussy, Selections from Préludes, Books 1 and 2

Debussy’s two volumes of twelve preludes contain the essence of his uniqueness as a 

composer. The Préludes are truly impressionistic, not only because their titles refer to 

some extra-musical object or idea, but also because they are moments of music that 

exist in and of themselves, without any attempt to present a formal beginning, development, or end. Nevertheless, each is a satisfying entity creating as it unfolds a form 

of its own. In some cases, the composer’s musical impression of the object in the title 

is fairly easy to grasp; at other times the relationship between the title and the music 

is subtler, sometimes known only to the composer himself. It is revealing to note that 

Debussy, in his manuscript, placed the title of each prelude at the end of it, not at the 

beginning, and may have chosen the title after the music had already been conceived.

This program note originally appeared in a performance at the National Gallery 

of Art on Sunday, January 30, 1994, with the pianist Peter Takács.

Sergei Rachmaninoff, Etudes-Tableaux, op. 39

Sergei Rachmaninoff was one of the leading piano virtuosos of the twentieth century 

and is equally known for the beauty of his own music. His use of strong melodies 

embellished with elaborate technical flourishes creates intensive crystallizations of a 

particular mode or subject, and the Etudes-Tableaux could also be described as small 

tone poems in their own right. Indeed, the fifteen Etudes-Tableaux of opuses 33 and 39 

(the latter heard in today’s program) were thought to be sonic representations of 

the same number of paintings, but the source of Rachmaninoff’s inspiration for these 

impassioned works remains a mystery.

This program note originally appeared in a performance at the National Gallery of Art 

on Sunday, June 16, 1996, with the pianist Stephen Prutsman.

Marc-André Hamelin, Tango

“A performer of near-superhuman technical prowess” (New York Times), pianist MarcAndré Hamelin is known worldwide for his unrivaled blend of musicianship and brilliant 

technique in works of the established repertoire, as well as for his intrepid exploration 

of the rarities of the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries. Hamelin has 

composed nearly thirty compositions over the course of his career. Lynne Withey and 

Michael Hindus commissioned his newest work, Tango, making its world premiere 

today. Born in Montreal, Hamelin is the recipient of a lifetime achievement award from 

PROGRAM NOTES
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Edmond Lebel, Still Life of Musical Instruments, c. 1863, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 

Robert B. Menschel Fund, 2006.109.1

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the German Record Critics’ Association and has received seven Juno Awards and 

eleven Grammy nominations. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada, a Chevalier de 

l’Ordre du Québec, and a member of the Royal Society of Canada.

Igor Stravinsky, Le Sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring)

The chaotic premiere of Igor Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps in 1913, coupled with 

the outbreak of World War I, caused this monumental work not to be heard again in 

an orchestral version for seven years, except for this version for piano four hands.

The genesis of the composition came to Stravinsky in 1910, as he was finishing The 

Firebird. In a “fleeting vision,” Stravinsky says, “[I saw] a solemn pagan rite: sage elders, 

seated in a circle, watching a young girl dance herself to death. They were sacrificing 

her to propitiate the god of spring.”

Stravinsky immediately started planning this work in collaboration with the 

Russian painter and archeologist Nikolai Roerich, before a note of music was written. 

Roerich would ultimately work on the set and costumes for the premiere of the ballet 

at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, along with the choreographer Vaslav Nijinsky. At a 

party in Paris at the home of French critic Louis Laloy, prior to the ballet’s premiere, 

Stravinsky cajoled Claude Debussy to play the arrangement for piano four hands with 

him for the guests. Debussy later remarked that the music of Le Sacre du printemps

haunted him “like a beautiful nightmare.”

After the publication of the orchestral version in 1921, this version for four hands 

faded from memory, until 1967, when the pianist, conductor, and composer Michael 

Tilson Thomas and pianist Ralph Grierson, with Stravinsky’s blessing, performed and 

recorded the work. Since then it has become a staple of piano duos, last heard here at 

the National Gallery of Art in 2016, with the Anderson and Roe Piano Duo.

Upcoming Events of the SeventyEighth Season of The William Nelson 

Cromwell and F. Lammot Belin Concerts

Unless otherwise noted, concerts 

are held in the West Building, West 

Garden Court.

Sound Sketch

Jacqueline Pollauf, harp

Lamentations, Prayers, and Meditations 

in Contemporary Art and Music

East Building Library

October 25, 12:10

Slavic Soul Party!

Far East Suite

A reimagination of Duke Ellington’s 

Far East Suite with an Eastern European 

brass band twist!

October 27, 3:30

Gaelynn Lea, singer-songwriter and 

violinist

Presented in honor of Disability 

Employment Awareness Month *

October 29, 12:10

West Building Lecture Hall

Jenny Scheinman and Allison Miller

Parlour Game *

November 3, 3:30

 * This concert is part of a series of 

performances by female violinists, 

showcasing the brilliance and stylistic 

versatility of the instrument.

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.

—

The department of music produced 

these program notes. Copyright © 2019 

Board of Trustees, National Gallery of Art, 

Washington
NGA.GOV/MUSIC