# Parallels between Art and Music



## Edward Elgar

Is anyone here interested in painting and sculpture? It's quite interesting to see the parallels between art and music as they evolve together throughout art history.

I've recently been thinking about which composers have an "equivalent" in the visual art world. Well, not really the equivalent, but composers who made the same sort of progress and experimented with the same ideas as those in the art world.

Here are a few of the composers and the artists I associate with their music:

Brahms - Caspar David Friedrich
Debussy - Monet
Ravel - Manet
Stravinsky - Picasso
Messiaen - Mattise
Morton Feldman - Mark Rothko

This thread is designed for general discussion about the relationship between art an music. I hope you have opinions on the subject, and maybe some composer/artist combinations of your own. Thanks.


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## Sid James

That's pretty hard, but I'll have a go!

Vivaldi - Canaletto (Vivaldi's music radiates Venice to me)
Beethoven - Rembrandt (Contrasts between dark & light)
Gesualdo - Carravagio (the sheer emotionality & exaggeration in both these men's works)
Palestrina - Raphael (a kind of idealised world, very religious)
Poulenc - Dufy (playful & fun, light, airy)
Bloch - Chagall (a concern with the Jewish experience)
Mahler - Klimt (a kind of decadence, opulence, extravagance)
Bartok - Kandinsky (abstraction, but rooted in figurative (folk?) traditions)
Dutilleux - Delvaux (a kind of surreal, night time, dream-like & imaginary world)

That's all I can think of, but of course this is quite subjective...


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## starry

Edward Elgar said:


> Is anyone here interested in painting and sculpture? It's quite interesting to see the parallels between art and music as they evolve together throughout art history.
> 
> I've recently been thinking about which composers have an "equivalent" in the visual art world. Well, not really the equivalent, but composers who made the same sort of progress and experimented with the same ideas as those in the art world.
> 
> Here are a few of the composers and the artists I associate with their music:
> 
> Brahms - Caspar David Friedrich
> Debussy - Monet
> Ravel - Manet
> Stravinsky - Picasso
> Messiaen - Mattise
> Morton Feldman - Mark Rothko
> 
> This thread is designed for general discussion about the relationship between art an music. I hope you have opinions on the subject, and maybe some composer/artist combinations of your own. Thanks.


The Debussy and Stravinsky ones are most obvious. I thought of the Stravinsky one myself before, both doing different styles at different times but neither appealing to me that much. Not sure how close Ravel and Manet are.


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## joen_cph

Was educated as an art historian, but should I compare, it would more be on the basis of the chosen literary content and the musical picturing / iconography employed by composers / painters,
than some debattable or vague technical or colouristic terms - thus emphasizing a common basis in the contemporary cultural context. Attempts at formalistic comparisons have been made though.

There are quite a lot of examples of composers and painters inspiring each other in various ways - Ciurlionis "Sonatas"-paintings, the cubists fondness of musical motifs, the Mussorgsky "Pictures" etc. etc.


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## Art Rock

Edward Elgar said:


> Is anyone here interested in painting and sculpture? It's quite interesting to see the parallels between art and music as they evolve together throughout art history.
> 
> I've recently been thinking about which composers have an "equivalent" in the visual art world. Well, not really the equivalent, but composers who made the same sort of progress and experimented with the same ideas as those in the art world.
> 
> Here are a few of the composers and the artists I associate with their music:
> 
> Brahms - Caspar David Friedrich
> Debussy - Monet
> Ravel - Manet
> Stravinsky - Picasso
> Messiaen - Mattise
> Morton Feldman - Mark Rothko
> 
> This thread is designed for general discussion about the relationship between art an music. I hope you have opinions on the subject, and maybe some composer/artist combinations of your own. Thanks.


I love fine arts (my wife is a professional artist), and your Stravinsky - Picasso link really struck me, as I hold both in much lower regards than most, even though I love 20th century art and music in general.

Brahms-Friedrich and Debussy-Monet are great choices.


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## Aramis

Beethoven - Shakespeare
Mahler - Kafka 
John Cage - Piero Manzoni
Szymanowski - Witkacy 
Ralph Vaughan Williams - Tolkien
Liszt - Lord Byron


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## starry

Vaughan Williams with Tolkien??


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## Aramis

starry said:


> Vaughan Williams with Tolkien??


Yeah, two old geezers that made music/writings like "Och, give me my pipe, it's so good to plant my *** in english countryside". I think RVW was a hibbot. Hobbit*.


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## joen_cph

> Vaughan Williams with Tolkien??


well he did look extremely trollish ...


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## Art Rock

Satie and Magritte seems a logical combo.

For Klimt I am thinking more of Zemlinsky than Mahler.

Hindemith/Kandinsky anyone?


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## Nix

Beethoven to Shakespeare? I'd compare him more to Mozart- as they both had an amazing output that consisted of works both light hearted and dark- and all of them complex.


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## Aramis

Nix said:


> Beethoven to Shakespeare? I'd compare him more to Mozart- as they both had an amazing output that consisted of works both light hearted and dark- and all of them complex.


Shakespeare was celebrated and adored in generation of early romantics, he was their god. So was Ludwig Van. Both Shakespeare and Beethoven are like great fundaments of everything that exists. And Mozart? No, IMO he is far from being compareable with Shakespeare.


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## starry

Art Rock said:


> Satie and Magritte seems a logical combo.
> 
> For Klimt I am thinking more of Zemlinsky than Mahler.
> 
> Hindemith/Kandinsky anyone?


Kandinsky is colourful.

And as for Shakespeare I'm not sure there is a musical equivalent, but Mozart did at least write for the stage alot. Verdi didn't do much comedy, and Mozart also is thought to mix tragedy and comedy in some operas.


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## joen_cph

Admittedly, this is fun, but it is also tends to be rather non-scientific and should at least be specified at bit, concerning the large and differentiated oeuvres involved. As regards _Manet - Ravel_, Manet´s art was a slap in the face on Bourgeois France, notorious for its provocative realism, whereas Ravel tends to dwell on exoticism. But perhaps the spooky undercurrents of "La Valse" and "Gaspard de la Nuit" & the "Bolero" as a possible picture of voluptousness has some of these Zolaesque traits, though much later than such possible sources ... _. Friedrich-Brahms_: Friedrich´s art was very much a rebellion against the Classicist and Academic ideals, substituting landscape painting for the figurative ideal and thus promoting a new genre, whereas Brahms art largely tries to continue academic forms of sonata etc.. Art such as CDFs quickly became a part of the German identity and Brahms probably liked it, though. There is an article by Leon Botstein on Brahms and 19th century painting, which I haven´t read but seems to point to Böcklin, who was more Brahms´ contemporary and whom he had a personal friendship with, and Brahms´ admiration for Adolph Menzel and even Max Klinger, who also made works referring to Brahms.
_Kandinsky-Hindemith_: Kandinsky was a pioneer in forming a totally new abstract language and a dedicated mysticist, whereas Hindemith, though creative and sometimes rebellious as well, promoted "Neue Sachlichkeit" and mostly classical forms. _Debussy-Monet_: This connection is promoted in countless records covers, but Debussy himself said that he was not an impressionist, rather a symbolist, and the connection to symbolism and the pointing out of a supernatural reality seems highly appropriate as well. There is a short, interesting article by Shengdar Tsai on the subject of Debussy and Impressionism available on the web, but the content is debatable - for instance, referring to the last movement of La Mer as influenced by Hokusai without any real specifying is dubious, since paintings of the sea form an unending series in 19th - 20th century painting. But as he mentions, Debussy often chose symbolist texts as a departure in his works - Poe (The Masque of the red Death), for example, Verlaine and Mallarmé. The relation to impressionism should at least be combined with a symbolist notion of rendering fragments of a supernatural or sinister reality (not that this has not been attempted in the interpretation of Impressionism - with success - but it is not the domineering view of that art form). _Matisse - Messiaen_. This must be based on the Vence chapel, or the reputation of the Fauves to be initially "wild", but I don´t think there´s much else to support it, say a religious undercurrent in Matisse´s oeuvre - he didn´t even practize Catholicism and was anything but a text-follower or a dogmatic. _Cage - Manzoni_: I get the point, especially the naughty one, and I´m definetely not a pro-Cage´an, but he was more associated with the earlier Marcel Duchamp, who had a comparable, nihilistic attitude towards conventional art. _Beethoven-Rembrandt_: a more poetic comparison across history and media, of course, eluding any real analysis, but perhaps fruitful on a more general humanistic level anyway ...


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## Edward Elgar

I've enjoyed the responses so far. I looked up some of the painters that I didn't know which were interesting discoveries.

To take this idea further, is there a particular painting you could cite that you feel has a direct link with a piece of music? Obviously this connection will be personal and just for fun.









This for me reflects the attitude of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. It's very earthy and quite violent.









This for me reflects the expanse and majesty of Brahms' 3rd.


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## Sebastien Melmoth

Years ago some chap wrote a book trying to tie in *Bach* with *M.C. Escher*.

The book was execrably unreadable, but it is an interesting comparison;
*Webern* with *Escher*, too.

*Chopin* with *Renoir* is a nice pairing you oft see on CD cover-art.

*Beethoven* with *Delacroix*?

*Satie* with Odilon *Redon*?

*Schönberg* with Egon *Schiele*?

César *Franck* with *Bouguereau*?

*Fauré* with Gustave *Caillebotte*?

*Grieg* with *Munch*?

*Reger* with Franz *Marc*?


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## Aramis

> And as for Shakespeare I'm not sure there is a musical equivalent, but Mozart did at least write for the stage alot. Verdi didn't do much comedy, and Mozart also is thought to mix tragedy and comedy in some operas.


This is far too literal comparison. General position in history and character of output would be better point of consideration than such things, otherwise we would soon state that Tchaikovsky makes parrel with some avant-garde gay painter because they both were homosexual and had beards.



> This for me reflects the expanse and majesty of Brahms' 3rd.


Very obvious choice for romantic symphony.

I think that one picture could never stand for the whole grand work like symphony.


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## starry

Aramis said:


> This is far too literal comparison. General position in history and character of output would be better point of consideration than such things, otherwise we would soon state that Tchaikovsky makes parrel with some avant-garde gay painter because they both were homosexual and had beards.


Says someone who paired Vaughan Williams with Tolkien because he thinks he looks like a hobbit. 

And Renoir with Chopin? The pianist composer for me can't conjure up all the colours of Renoir. I'd say Mozart is nearer to Renoir, elegance and beauty with an orchestral palette.


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## Aramis

> Says someone who paired Vaughan Williams with Tolkien because he thinks he looks like a hobbit.


No, I never said that. I paired them because they both share the same quasi-national vibe.


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## Sebastien Melmoth

starry said:


> _Renoir with Chopin?_


This seems to me a very natural pairing due to the celebration of feminine beauty in both artists--(with Chopin I'm thinking of the waltzes and possibly the preludes).


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## starry

Aramis said:


> No, I never said that. I paired them because they both share the same quasi-national vibe.


But Tolkien is fantasy?


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## Sebastien Melmoth

*Berg* with *Magritte*?

*Debussy* with *Van Gogh* (or *Rodin*)?

*Ravel* with *Goya* (or *Signac*)?

*Ives* with Edward *Hopper*, definitely.


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## starry

JS Bach - Mondrian?


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## Sebastien Melmoth

Edward Elgar said:


> _Brahms - Caspar David Friedrich
> Debussy - Monet
> Ravel - Manet
> Stravinsky - Picasso_


Those are all pretty good.

Hindemith with Kandinsky (or Miró) is good.
Stravinsky with Chagall t'ain't bad...


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## Sebastien Melmoth

joen_cph said:


> _Brahms-Böcklin-Max Klinger_.
> _Kandinsky-Hindemith_
> _Debussy-Poe-Verlaine-Mallarmé._


Well done, Joen! All good calls! Bravo!


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## starry

Mozart - Fragonard is a possibility I suppose, but it does probably give a one-sided view of Mozart. Some composers need more than one painter to represent them.


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## Aramis

starry said:


> But Tolkien is fantasy?


So superficial again :<

Tolkien is not fantasy, Tolkien's most famous writings belong to it.

Anyway, genre name doesn't matter. My point is that Tolkien is much about typical english mood/spirit and so is RMV's music.


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## Sebastien Melmoth

starry said:


> _Mozart - Fragonard._


Oh, *n i c e*, Starry!

Good call. Well done.


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## Sebastien Melmoth

Aramis said:


> _typical english mood/spirit._


Can I hear of *Butterworth* and *Houseman*?

*Byrd* and *Shakespeare*.

I can see *Mahler* and *Kafka*...


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## starry

Aramis said:


> So superficial again :<
> 
> Tolkien is not fantasy, Tolkien's most famous writings belong to it.
> 
> Anyway, genre name doesn't matter. My point is that Tolkien is much about typical english mood/spirit and so is RMV's music.


In *your* opinion of what English mood/spirit is. And Lord of the Rings IS fantasy, just like in a different way CS Lewis or Lewis Carroll is (but maybe in a more gothic way with Tolkien). Vaughan Williams is generally known for a kind of stereotypical Southern English pastoralism. I guess some may find it annoying when you can't put a group of people into the same easy simple category.


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## Aramis

starry said:


> In *your* opinion of what English mood/spirit is.


Mirror Image!


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## starry

Haydn - Frans Hals? Particularly his earlier paintings which according to Wikipedia radiate "gaiety and liveliness".


I'd put Holst nearer to Tolkien than Vaughan Williams for his Planets, but I still wouldn't really put them together either


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## Sebastien Melmoth

starry said:


> _Haydn - Frans Hals?_


Excellent.

Tolkien?--Wagner Ring rip-off!


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## starry

Yeh that's not bad with Wagner.

What about Vermeer. I would say Mozart for it's gracefulness, but the paintings often aren't that lively either so I'm not sure.

Handel we haven't done yet.


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## Huilunsoittaja

I think Music and Art are both equally affected not only be each other but by *PHILOSOPHY*. Art movements such as Cubism, Surrealism, and Dadaism originated from ideologies. So the same with music. Some examples:

*Romanticism*- The Emotions rather than the Mind are the most rational, as well as value of individualism over society. True Spiritual understanding comes from nature and one's own spiritual experiences (Scriabin followed that particularly). Also, Nationalism in general was followed by many Romantic Era composers (besides artists).

*Cubism*- The philosophy (not only genre) that everything is relative to the way you perceive something. I would have to say people like Stravinsky followed this philosophy as well.

*Surrealism*- The philosophy that life is meaningless, therefore, art must express this fact (that it should express nothing). I think Schoenberg followed this belief, as well as the Serialists.

It's a sad fact, but it's very hard to remove philosophy from Art in general.


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## starry

All periods of history are shaped by different ideologies whether philosophical/religious/political. These help shape the society through the psychology of the citizens. Still there can be individual variety and creativity within that, even some who rebel to whatever extent they can in their time.


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## Sid James

Yes, I think Mozart - Fragonard; Satie - Magritte are good fits...

I'd also add:

Haydn - J. L. David (Classicism, order, unity)
Berlioz - Delacroix (Movement, colour, passion)
Enescu - Tuculescu (art based on a strong (Romanian) folkish element)
Boulez or Carter - De Stael (fragmentation, complexity, multifaceted)
Alkan - Rodin (profundity, seriousness, depth)
Chavez - Siquerios (drama, epic, movement & they were both Mexicans!)
Ligeti - Escher (repetition, patterns, idiosyncracies)
Wagner - Mackart (epic, vast, dark)
Chopin - Chardin (intimacy, homeliness, warmth)

This has been fun. A way to combine my interests in music & visual art...


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## StlukesguildOhio

Andre:

Vivaldi - Canaletto (Vivaldi's music radiates Venice to me)
Beethoven - Rembrandt (Contrasts between dark & light)
Gesualdo - Carravagio (the sheer emotionality & exaggeration in both these men's works)
Palestrina - Raphael (a kind of idealised world, very religious)
Poulenc - Dufy (playful & fun, light, airy)
Bloch - Chagall (a concern with the Jewish experience)
Mahler - Klimt (a kind of decadence, opulence, extravagance)
Bartok - Kandinsky (abstraction, but rooted in figurative (folk?) traditions)
Dutilleux - Delvaux (a kind of surreal, night time, dream-like & imaginary world)

Andre... some good parallels here. I'd probably suggest Veronese or even Tiepolo for Vivaldi as maintaining the clear Venetian connection... but also suggesting a greater openess.

Beethoven and Rembrandt are perfect... not only for the drama and contrasts... but the sheer humanity.

Gesualdo and Caravaggio... I wouldn't have thought of immediately... but yes there is the similarity or unfettered emotion as well as the violent histories

Palestrina and Raphael? I would think we need something more sensuous. Remember this is the artist of the Sistine Madonna and the guy who was a known womanizer who died of syphilis.

Mahler and Klimt? I don't feel Klimt is neurotic enough... but close.

Elgar:

Debussy - Monet

Yes!

Stravinsky - Picasso

Yes!

Messiaen - Mattise

Oh hell no! We need someone who strips down his art to the absolute bare essence. Satie? Even Mozart would be a better connection.

Art Rock:

For Klimt I am thinking more of Zemlinsky than Mahler

Another good parallel.

Sebastian M.:

Satie with Odilon Redon?

Both are quite poetic... although I don't quite get the dream-like surrealism of Redon from Satie.

Schönberg with Egon Schiele?

Both are quite "ugly"... but no... I'd equate Schönberg with something far more abstract and structured: Mondrian or Joseph Albers.

Starry:

JS Bach - Mondrian?

Oh hell no. Bach is a Gothic Cathedral: God and Form

Mozart - Fragonard is a possibility I suppose, but it does probably give a one-sided view of Mozart

Not Fragonard... Watteau. Watteau captures the wistfulness of Mozart... dancing on the edge of oblivion.


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## starry

Well as I said earlier I'm not sure you can pick just one painter to represent some composers. But the more abstact ordered Bach (as in fugues for instance) may relate to Mondrian, who did some quite complex pictures in his output. And other arts have been inspired in an abstact manner by JS Bach such as in film, most famously in Fantasia.


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## Sebastien Melmoth

StlukesguildOhio said:


> _Beethoven and Rembrandt
> Palestrina and Raphael?
> Mozart - Watteau_


*Beethoven* and *Michelangelo*? (Beethoven's dynamism.)
*Palestrina* and *Giotto*?
Definitely *Mozart* and *Watteau*.

*Dvorák* and Alphonse *Mucha*?

Okay, here's one in left field: get ready for it:

*Schumann* and Georg Friedrich *Kersting*.

Also, I could see:

*Satie* and Georges *Seurat*;

*Debussy* and Paul *Signac*;

*Ropartz* and *Cézanne*.


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## Jules141

Debussy - Godard

Berlioz - Ken Russel

Copland - John Ford

Vaughn Williams - Terence Davies

Hard to do it with directors, their individual styles are so varied.


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## emiellucifuge

I know Kandinsky has been thrown about a lot, but i truly believe he matches with Schoenberg.

The two were great friends and shared many of the same ideals. In fact it was Schoenberg who set Kandisnky off on his Symbolist way.









There exists a picture of both artists with their wives having a picnic in their swimsuits.


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## starry

Jules141 said:


> Debussy - Godard
> 
> Berlioz - Ken Russel
> 
> Copland - John Ford
> 
> Vaughn Williams - Terence Davies
> 
> Hard to do it with directors, their individual styles are so varied.


Mozart - Jean Renoir

Beethoven - Eisenstein

JS Bach - Dreyer


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## Sebastien Melmoth

emiellucifuge said:


> _Kandinsky matches with Schoenberg. The two were great friends_.


That's true; also *Schönberg* knew *Franz Marc* with the Blue Rider group; he likely knew *August Macke* as well. 
Both Marc and Macke were slain in combat in WWI.

*Schönberg* certainly knew *Richard Gerstl*, as he took painting lessons with him and his wife had a torrid affair and eloped with him before he became a suicide.

Marc, Macke, and Gerstl were all wonderfully talented individualistic artists...


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## Earthling

John Cage - Ad Reinhardt ... quite literally-- he was one of Cage's stated inspirations behind 4'33".


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## Earthling

In my mind, I tend to associate Steve Reich with the clean minimalism of Barnett Newman.


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## Sid James

Earthling said:


> John Cage - Ad Reinhardt ... quite literally-- he was one of Cage's stated inspirations behind 4'33"...


Didn't the Russian Kasmir Malevich do an identical painting (white square on white background) earlier in the C20th? Just shows that nothing is new under the sun...


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## Il Seraglio

Hopefully it's not too late to throw in my two cents. I agree with the comparison of Beethoven to Rembrandt by the way, despite the difference in time period.

Maybe *Penderecki* and *Bacon*. The 'threnody' is chilling and grotesque in the way Bacon's paintings are.

I think people would naturally compare Wagner to *CD Friedrich*, but the _Wanderer_ painting evokes more the sound of *Schumann* and *Brahms* to me and their broad emotional strokes... but still unmistakably German.

I feel inclined to liken the style of *Mozart's* music to *Jacques-Louis David's* at the risk of that being too obvious.


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## starry

Caspar David Friedrich evokes early to mid 19th century romanticism in general to me, probably has more literary associations than musical (but maybe that's the case for painting in that period in general).


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## Sid James

*Monteverdi & Durer* - Both excellent creators of both sacred and secular art. Their craft shows a keen sense of observation. An ability to focus on fine detail, but not forget the "big picture." A balanced view of the world, neither too dark nor too light.


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## Edward Elgar

I know the temporal differences are obvious in these comparisons, but how about parallels between composers and movie directors.

This depends on whether you consider film an art form. Also, the parallels would be much more subjective depending on how you think a director's style translates to a composer's voice.


To me, Stanley Kubrick is the Beethoven of film. He pushed boundaries and expanded the scope for film just as Beethoven did. Each of his films can stand on their own and have their own unique genre. I feel that the symphonies of Beethoven could similarly stand on their own had he just composed one of them during his lifetime.

Stephen Spielberg would be the Mozart of the film world, as a lot of his stuff is very commercial although he made a few really good films.

Hitchcock would be Bach.

Quentin Tarantino would be Stravinsky.

I know some may find these comparisons blasphemous, and I do to a certain extent. However, they are fun to think about and I welcome any more suggestions for director/composer comparisons.


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## Il Seraglio

Guiseppe Verdi - Franco Zeffirelli
Richard Wagner - Werner Herzog
Felix Mendelssohn - Stephen Spielberg
Carl Orff - Tony Scott
Edward Elgar - David Lean
Claude Debussy - Jean Cocteau


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## starry

Edward Elgar said:


> I know the temporal differences are obvious in these comparisons, but how about parallels between composers and movie directors.


A couple of us have looked at this.


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## classidaho

I love classic music, have little taste for contemprary...............

I can say about the same with art.


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## jurianbai

How about parallel to architecture. They use the same term, Gothic, Baroque, Romantic,Modern, Postmodern and then blurry Deconstructism. here some modern landmark:

Antoni Gaudi - Casa Mila 1910









Le Corbusier - Ronchamp chapel 1950-1954









Frank L. Wright Fallingwater, Bear Run, Pennsylvania (1937)









Bauhaus school (walter gropius) - Dessau









Michael Graves - Portland Building 1980's









IM Pei - Louvre 1989


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## jurianbai

and a more recent works:

Frank Gehry - Walt Disney Concert Hall 2003









Peter Eisenman - berlin memorial 2000s









Beijing Olympic Stadium 2008


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## Serge

Honestly, I don’t see myself listening to that Berlin memorial music equivalent a lot. Boring!


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## StlukesguildOhio

The Bauhaus structure is even worse... and I say this as someone educated by Bauhaus trained artists.


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## Sid James

The idea of a "holocaust memorial" can often be very controversial in itself: how do we memorialise such a horrible event?

You probably know this, St. luke's, but the Bauhaus movement was trying to get away from the sterile eclecticism that had dominated the arts around the turn of the century. They were trying to get away from this overloaded sense of "aestheticism" as an end in itself, and trying to emphasise simplicity & functionality. Of course, as we later found out, this also had big pitfalls (as with any movement). As your comments suggest, their approach today seems somewhat harsh and "universal," taken to the extreme perhaps in the skyscrapers of Mies van der Rohe. Same with Le Corbusier's "brutalism," it seems to us today to somewhat lack heart & soul. But of course, we can't forget the overcrowding, poor quality of buildings, and lack of hygiene in old and decaying European cities around that time. What these guys were hoping was to wipe the slate clean & start all over again (with no preconceptions? but of course, they had plenty). Anyway, as you can tell, this to me was a fascinating and fruitful time of experimentation & discovery. We tend to associate modernist architecture with the sterile and lifeless housing estates that popped up like mushrooms on the outskirts of most European cities after the ravages of the war. A sense of idealism misplaced, everything scaled down (or up?) to the lowest common denominator. Perhaps we have learnt from this, perhaps we have not. Perhaps the frivolous pastiche of some post-modernist architecture is a healthy reposte to the "grand narrative" concepts of modernism?

Anyway, here's my two cent's worth for music/architecture correspondences (some are just generic, not based on the work of any particular architect, some are):

Japanese shrine - Takemitsu
Chrysler building, New York - Gershwin
Eiffel tower, Paris - Ravel
St Paul's, London (Wren) - Handel
Sistine Chapel, Rome (dome, at least, by Michelangelo) - Palestrina
Reconstructed Globe Theatre, London - John Dowland
Westminster Abbey, London - Tallis or Byrd
Colloseum, Rome - Verdi?
Sydney Opera House - Carl Vine? (both examples of high modernism)
Brandenburg Gate, Berlin - J. S. Bach (definitely, Brandenburg Concertos)
Allhambra, Spain - Granados
Eszterhazy Palace, Fertod, Hungary - Haydn (definitely, since that's where he lived & worked for decades)
St Basil's, Moscow - Mussorgsky
Helsinki Cathedral - Sibelius (I think this is where his funeral was held, so appropriate?)
Houses of Parliament, London - Arne (as he penned _God Save the King_)


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## starry

Andre said:


> The idea of a "holocaust memorial" can often be very controversial in itself: how do we memorialise such a horrible event?
> 
> You probably know this, St. luke's, but the Bauhaus movement was trying to get away from the sterile eclecticism that had dominated the arts around the turn of the century. They were trying to get away from this overloaded sense of "aestheticism" as an end in itself, and trying to emphasise simplicity & functionality. Of course, as we later found out, this also had big pitfalls (as with any movement). As your comments suggest, their approach today seems somewhat harsh and "universal," taken to the extreme perhaps in the skyscrapers of Mies van der Rohe. Same with Le Corbusier's "brutalism," it seems to us today to somewhat lack heart & soul. But of course, we can't forget the overcrowding, poor quality of buildings, and lack of hygiene in old and decaying European cities around that time. What these guys were hoping was to wipe the slate clean & start all over again (with no preconceptions? but of course, they had plenty). Anyway, as you can tell, this to me was a fascinating and fruitful time of experimentation & discovery. We tend to associate modernist architecture with the sterile and lifeless housing estates that popped up like mushrooms on the outskirts of most European cities after the ravages of the war. A sense of idealism misplaced, everything scaled down (or up?) to the lowest common denominator. Perhaps we have learnt from this, perhaps we have not. Perhaps the frivolous pastiche of some post-modernist architecture is a healthy reposte to the "grand narrative" concepts of modernism?
> 
> Anyway, here's my two cent's worth for music/architecture correspondences (some are just generic, not based on the work of any particular architect, some are):
> 
> Japanese shrine - Takemitsu
> Chrysler building, New York - Gershwin
> Eiffel tower, Paris - Ravel
> St Paul's, London (Wren) - Handel
> Sistine Chapel, Rome (dome, at least, by Michelangelo) - Palestrina
> Reconstructed Globe Theatre, London - John Dowland
> Westminster Abbey, London - Tallis or Byrd
> Colloseum, Rome - Verdi?
> Sydney Opera House - Carl Vine? (both examples of high modernism)
> Brandenburg Gate, Berlin - J. S. Bach (definitely, Brandenburg Concertos)
> Allhambra, Spain - Granados
> Eszterhazy Palace, Fertod, Hungary - Haydn (definitely, since that's where he lived & worked for decades)
> St Basil's, Moscow - Mussorgsky
> Helsinki Cathedral - Sibelius (I think this is where his funeral was held, so appropriate?)
> Houses of Parliament, London - Arne (as he penned _God Save the King_)


I don't want to sound too critical but some of these are rather stereotypical.  Also the king / or monarch never lived at the Houses of Parliament so wouldn't really be associated with that imo.

Architecture for me is very often about politics, it takes money and power to build many great architectural structures and size is often very important to put people in awe and to send a message, one that will last many generations. Music generally I don't see as being political in its genesis, though some might later use music for political purposes.


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## starry

Edward Elgar said:


> I know the temporal differences are obvious in these comparisons, but how about parallels between composers and movie directors.
> 
> This depends on whether you consider film an art form. Also, the parallels would be much more subjective depending on how you think a director's style translates to a composer's voice.
> 
> To me, Stanley Kubrick is the Beethoven of film. He pushed boundaries and expanded the scope for film just as Beethoven did. Each of his films can stand on their own and have their own unique genre. I feel that the symphonies of Beethoven could similarly stand on their own had he just composed one of them during his lifetime.
> 
> Stephen Spielberg would be the Mozart of the film world, as a lot of his stuff is very commercial although he made a few really good films.
> 
> Hitchcock would be Bach.
> 
> Quentin Tarantino would be Stravinsky.
> 
> I know some may find these comparisons blasphemous, and I do to a certain extent. However, they are fun to think about and I welcome any more suggestions for director/composer comparisons.


Looking at your take on music-film, I don't really agree.  I definitely prefer mine. 

Kubrick to me - though he could of course be very good - was relatively calculated, Beethoven was quite an emotional classicist.

Spielberg is a bit sentimental and preachy. Mozart could be very popular but he could also - for some people of his time - seem quite dense, with too many musical ideas. Haydn was more the populist.

Hitchcock I see as being a populist as well, a great one no doubt, and very clever looking to thrill and surprise people. JS Bach was seeking to awe people but in a different kind of way really.

Tarantino I have never rated so comparing anyone to him is a bit of an insult imo, though I don't like Stravinsky that much I suppose.


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## Serge

StlukesguildOhio said:


> The Bauhaus structure is even worse... and I say this as someone educated by Bauhaus trained artists.


Yep, noticed that one as well but it looked so mundane I didn't think it even deserved a comment. Find the top two pretty damn ugly btw: not my kind of music I suppose!


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## Serge

Edward Elgar said:


> Quentin Tarantino would be Stravinsky.


How exactly is Tarantino a Stravinsky? One word I would use to define Stravinsky would be "angular". Tarantino is non-linear if anything, but angular? Now, that Beijing Stadium, that's Stravinsky!


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## Jules141

My earlier suggestions:



Jules141 said:


> Debussy - Godard
> 
> Berlioz - Ken Russel
> 
> Copland - John Ford
> 
> Vaughn Williams - Terence Davies
> 
> Hard to do it with directors, their individual styles are so varied.


I actually agree with the suggestion that Beethoven could be Kubrick, one of their films/symphonies could stand alone without a career of work.

Also agree with the idea that Richard Wagner could be Werner Herzog.

I don't understand at all how Tarantino compares to Stravinsky? Perhaps someone more American and post-modern? John Adams?


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## Earthling

Comparing with authors and some poets:

Toru Takemitsu >>> Yasunari Kawabata-- not merely for the obvious reason, but that both have a sense of stillness and silence that permeates their respective works (as well as, at times, a kind of magic). I'm sure that they both get some of this from a certain traditional Japanese aesthetic somewhat influenced perhaps by Zen.

Anton Webern >>> Paul Celan

Aaron Copland >>> Walt Whitman


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## Sid James

Serge said:


> Yep, noticed that one as well but it looked so mundane I didn't think it even deserved a comment. Find the top two pretty damn ugly btw: not my kind of music I suppose!


Maybe after 100 years + of Modernism, what the people did in the Bauhaus movement appears somewhat cliched or "ugly" to us. But think about it, what was it that they were reacting against? Obviously, the "eclectic" style buildings of the C19th that dominated the newer sections of many European cities. These were not designed with any considerations for the people that lived/worked in them, lighting was often poor, there was overcrowding, plus lack of hygiene and (often) poor building quality/standards. In this context, the Bauhaus, with it's clean and simple lines, clever use of space, putting in many windows for maximum light, and promoting high standards of construction that would last, was a movement I can relate to in some ways. I know what type of building I would've rather lived in back in those days, a new Bauhaus style apartment rather than a dingy, seedy, decaying tenement building or some such...


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## sclive

*How about Grieg and Tolkien?*

How about Grieg and Tolkien?


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## Crudblud

I don't think Grieg and Tolkien match up at all. Grieg mostly dealt in miniatures, while Tolkien planned out a huge world with its own languages, alphabets and so on, and then wrote epics within that context. I'd say Tolkien is more comparable with Wagner in terms of concept, planning and scale, although Tolkien famously dismissed comparisons between The Lord of the Rings and Wagner's Ring.


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## Ivanovich

Couperin - Watteau


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