Music in Art
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September 2023
Art in Music
Books
The Music of Painting by Call Number: ML3849.V47 2010
Eye HEar: the Visual in Music by Call Number: ML3849 .S46 2013
Musical Ekphrasis: composers responding to poetry and painting by Call Number: ML3849 .B9 2000
The Arts Entwined: music and painting in the nineteenth century by Call Number: Online Access
The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Image in Western Art by Call Number: ML3849 .O92 2016
Art in Music
Goyescas
Goyescas, a piano suite by Enrique Granados, takes general inspiration from the works of Spanish painter Francisco Goya. Goyescas references two works by Goya in particular: El amor y la muerte, an etching, and El pelele, an oil painting.
El amor y la muerte
Etching (1797)
GRANADOS, E.: Goyescas, Book 1
No. 5: El amor y la muerte
El pelele
Painting (1791)
GRANADOS, E.: Goyescas, Book 1
El pelele: Escena Goyesca
Pictures at an Exhibition
Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition comes from an exhibition the composer attended posthumously displaying sketches and watercolors by Viktor Hartman, an architect and a painter. Each movement from Pictures allegedly corresponds to a different work by Hartman, although some of the sketches originally on display have been lost.
Mussorgsky originally composed Pictures at an Exhibition in 1886 as a solo piano suite, but the piece has received a multitude of orchestral adaptations in the years since. The best known arrangement was orchestrated by Maurice Ravel in 1922.
Sketches of theatre costumes for the ballet Trilby
MUSSORGSKY, M.: Pictures at an Exhibition
V. Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks
Paris Catacombs
MUSSORGSKY, M.: Pictures at an Exhibition
VIII. Catacombae: Sepulchrum romanum
The hut of Baba-Yaga on hen's legs
MUSSORGSKY, M.: Pictures at an Exhibition
IX. The Hut on Hen's Legs
Isle of the Dead
Arnold Böcklin's oil painting Isle of the Dead inspired Sergei Rachmaninoff's symphonic poem Op. 29 "Ostrov mortvykh" ("Isle of the Dead). Though Böcklin's painting was in color, the version Rachmaninoff saw was a black and white photograph of the original.
Isle of the Dead
Photograph
RACHMANINOFF: The Isle of the Dead, Op. 29
Sunday in the Park with George
Stephen Sondheim's musical Sunday in the Park with George depicts a fictionalized version of French artist Georges Seraut, known for his pointillist paintings. The musical was nominated for ten Tony awards and won the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for Drama.
SONDHEIM, S.: Sunday in the Park with George
More Music Based on Art
Rothko Chapel
FELDMAN, MORTON: Rothko Chapel
"La Primavera" by Botticelli
OTTORINO RESPIGHI: Trittico botticelliano, P. 151
I. La primavera, allegro vivace
"L'adorazione dei Magi", Sandro Botticelli
OTTORINO RESPIGHI: Trittico botticelliano, P. 151
II. L'adorazione dei Magi: andante lento
"La nascita di venere", Sandro Botticelli
OTTORINO RESPIGHI: Trittico botticelliano, P. 151
III. La nascita di Venere: allegro moderato