Saturday, July 4, 2015

Consider The Inspirational Relationship Shared Within The Art Of Paul Klee And The Music Of Gunther Schuller

By Dorthy Lloyd


Throughout the centuries, artists and musicians have drawn inspiration from each other. Often, the love for the arts is strong and a master in one discipline has been trained in another. When creative opportunities offer the chance to merge two artistic loves in one work, then something new and different becomes a landmark of expression.

Two great masters, one an artist, the other a musician, produced works reflecting their loves for both music and art. Paul Klee took a definitive place in the contemporary world when his drawings and paintings gained public attention. The pieces reflected the stylistic trends of his lifetime. The same was true in following years, when Gunther Schuller composed an orchestral work inspired by the paintings of Paul. This commissioned piece successfully created musical expressions to match those in the art.

There are descriptions provided by Gunther to explain his reasons for choosing the pieces he selected. He wanted to use both the compositional elements of each painting and the mood or feeling he believed it evoked in the viewer. Each note that he wrote gives profound, and in some cases humorous, reflections on his own thought process.

The seven musical pieces in the complete work have inspired debate and commentary. During the interview process, Schuller told the story about how he came to write what would be paired with Little Blue Devil. Because his own work focused on the melding of jazz and classical music as equally valid genres, the title caused him to think about the blues right away. He composed in that genre, as it was a perfect pairing of vocabulary and mood.

Bringing the interaction of the fine arts full circle, is the often described love for music that Paul had himself. He studied music with his parents beginning at a young age. His musical studies and love for it remained with him as long as he lived.

His writings, and certainly those of scholars who chronicled his works, describe his striving to use the basic concepts of music in his visual creations. Using drawn lines were similar to playing musical lines. Notes of melodies could express emotions, and lines in art could visually depict the gamut of human feelings, too. His paintings are described as visual renderings of the auditory language of music.

Gunther chose seven paintings with many different shapes, lines and colors. These terms, and certainly more, are shared in both the musical and artistic vocabularies. While Paul worked to have his art show elements of music, what motivated Gunther was the chance to describe the art within his compositions. It is a mark of creative excellence that both were able to achieve satisfactory works that are still being exhibited and performed today.

Since the time the work was premiered, many intellectual discussions have been held concerning his focus on the work of Paul. Without a doubt, the music has been played with and without commentary by the composer many times. But, what is important to take away from all of the words, is the theme of creative collaboration between two minds that have certainly thought alike. Both separately and through inspiration, they have demonstrated what is possible when global thinking takes place.




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