Reciprocal Interactions of Music and Painting: Representation Types in Schuller, Tan, and Davies after Paul Klee
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Abstract
In this paper, I explore ways in which three compositions—Gunther Schuller’s Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee (1959), Peter Maxwell Davies’s Five Klee Pictures (1959/1976), and Tan Dun’s Death and Fire (1992)—lead a listener-observer to understand Paul Klee’s painting Die Zwitschermachine [The Twittering Machine] (1922) not only as influencing music composition but as one whose reception is influenced by composition as interpretation. I rely on concepts that I term descriptive or contextual representation to provide the framework for explaining such reciprocal relations between music and painting. By providing a unique lens through which to view the painting, each piece participates in generating a new twittering machine, so that the analyses uncover three different Zwitschermaschinen. Considered together with the painting, the three compositions take part in creating three distinct virtual multimedia works, each consisting of a combination of the painting with the music. Observers of Klee’s canvas, empowered with the musical thought of the three composers, may apperceive the painting anew through a multitextual listening activity that involves descriptive and contextual representation.
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