Dongryul Lee
Goethe's Garden (2016-2017) for 2 pianos tuned a quartertone apart
V. gleichsam auf einer geistigen Leiter - as on a spiritual ladder
이동렬 - 두 대의 미분음 조율된 피아노를 위한 "괴테의 정원," 제 5악장 - 영적인 사다리 위에서
18th Annual 21st Century Piano Competition Concert
Hanah Choi and Hanqian Zhu, piano
Foellinger Great Hall, Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
February 10, 2017, 7:30 pm
Notes on tonight’s program
One of our musicology professors says that a good paper demonstrates directions for future research: or in other words, a possibility for different paths to a topic. I think this is what I have tried to do for tonight’s concert.
We humans, artists, aspire to see something beyond, or unknown. Plato described this as shadows of the cave. In mythology this was symbolized as death or night (Tenebrae), and during medieval period, it was alleged to be evil. As an order or system arises, there also arises chaos or disorder as a counter-force, a complementary set. We are designed to see only what we are used to; for example we understand something mostly defined by our languages, as Lacan pointed out.
But we struggle to enlarge our visions: to see or at least to grope towards something which we have not yet recognized or perceived with our current faculties. Something in-between, something unknown, something which is out of our “system,” or something even recognized as ugly in current society.
Mathematicians use equations to search for the beyond. They use “transformation” formulae to solve specific equations which cannot be solved in their original domain (for example, the Laplace transform in differential equations). They try to see something in a different perspective, guiding them to a (literally) new dimensional thinking, enabling them to see objects previously invisible. This new sight is not a creation, but a discovery. The answer has been with us, in our own dimension, but either hidden, overlooked or ignored. The value of truth reveals itself only when properly illuminated.
For this concert, I tried to posit one question about beauty. I hope this trial of “asking,” similar to transformation formulae in mathematics, experiments in physics, or Buddhist zen questions, can give us room to think about us-about music, our society, our earth, and beauty, either transcendental or ephemeral.
This society is in danger, this earth is in danger, and this species is in danger. We need to see and think differently, and we have to do this during our lifetime. All artists need to be in danger whenever they try to create something. They need to see something without them in it, by killing (removing) themselves. Tarkovsky wrote: “True artistic inspiration is always a torment for the artist, almost to the point of endangering one’s life… The artist seeks to destroy the stability by which society lives, for the sake of drawing closer to the ideal. Society seeks stability, the artist-infinity” (Sculpting in Time, 1986). We are incomplete beings, and this awareness of weakness and ignorance of ourselves makes us stronger. But ignorance of our ignorance will destroy us in the end.
Thankfully, this society has good people who are aware of our incompleteness. I deeply appreciate Richard Anderson and Jana Mason, the donors who made the 21st Century Piano Competition Concert possible. I also appreciate Han-ah Choi and Hanqian Zhu, two great pianists who spent endless hours to learn and speak through these pieces; and I truly appreciate my teachers and the composition faculty of the University of Illinois who generously supported and encouraged me to keep composing. I appreciate my wife Hyelin and my dearest daughter Jera, who everyday give me a new transformation formula to see the world differently. And most of all, I thank you all who came here to attend this concert and listen to this unfamiliar and “unstable” music.
Thank you.
Dongryul Lee