# Connections Among Art Forms



## Aleksandr Rachkofiev (Apr 7, 2019)

This is a question I've wanted to ask for a long time, and I'm not quite sure if it's been done yet in any thread (and I'm sorry, the TC search algorithm just doesn't do it for me), but are there any authors or painters who make you think of certain composers/pieces? I always have found it fascinating to connect the different arts and find precisely what makes one connect them so naturally. It's already been done countless times in adaptations (Dostoevsky's The Gambler turned Prokofiev Opera, Bocklin's and Rachmaninoff's Isle of the Dead, Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit inspired by Bertrand's poems of the same name), but what connections have you found that are original/unintended?

One that I've been thinking of recently is Prokofiev's Third Symphony, The Fiery Angel, (particularly its finale) and the most famous of Goya's black paintings, Saturn Devouring his Son. Both conjure such vivid images of all-consuming evil in this world, either through insanity by demonic possession (Prokofiev) or a lust for power and control that is sort of a demonic possession in itself (Goya).

So share your connections! I'm eager to hear the creativity!


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

There are of course lots of composers who have works directly inspired by paintings in addition to the ones you mentioned (e.g. Mussorgsky, Granados, Mengelberg, Feldman), and also painters who have been inspired by music (e.g. Richter).

Associating music with art that was not directly related happens to me as well, in particular Debussy's piano pieces and Monet's paintings.


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## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

Emily Dickinson's poems about "God" evoke the strangeness, sublimity (the almost terrifying kind, not just grandeur), and beauty of meditating on spirituality and the afterlife in a way that reminds me of Messiaen. I could easily imagine the haunting opening of Eclairs, or any number of his pieces really, accompanying these scenes and moods.






_THERE'S a certain slant of light,	
On winter afternoons,	
That oppresses, like the weight	
Of cathedral tunes._

---

_
Departed to the judgment,
A mighty afternoon;
Great clouds like ushers leaning,
Creation looking on.

The flesh surrendered, cancelled
The bodiless begun;
Two worlds, like audiences, disperse
And leave the soul alone. _

---
_
"Sunset" sounds majestic-
But that solemn War
Could you comprehend it
You would chastened stare._

Perhaps you could even draw some sort of parallel between Messiaen's Quartet for the End of the Time and something like this.

_GREAT streets of silence led away	
To neighborhoods of pause;	
Here was no notice, no dissent,	
No universe, no laws.

By clocks 't was morning, and for night 
The bells at distance called;	
But epoch had no basis here,	
For period exhaled.	
_

Come to think of it, her descriptions of animals and nature have this glittering mysticism about them too, the same way Messiaen's bird songs seem to evoke something deeper than just the surface level beauty and grace of the animal (I'll just post links to keep from cluttering this post even further).

https://www.bartleby.com/113/2003.html
https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/within-my-garden-rides-a-bird/


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## Guest (Jul 9, 2019)

Oddly enough, I don't make these connections. I can't bring to mind any of the novels or poetry I've read, or paintings or sculpture I've seen that put me in mind of any music...or vice versa.

Artists, writers and composers may set out to express in one medium, their responses to works in another, but that's not quite the same thing; being told that x is a reaction to a painting of The Great Gate of Kiev rather does all the work for you.


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## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

I'll admit that I'm forming these connections for the sake of this thread, and also don't feel naturally inclined to associate separate artforms in this way. It is fun though!

Whitman sort of evokes the mystery and intrigue of Debussy here, at least for me.

_ Last of ebb, and daylight waning,
Scented sea-cool landward making, smells of sedge and salt incoming,
With many a half-caught voice sent up from the eddies,
Many a muffled confession--many a sob and whisper'd word,
As of speakers far or hid._

Or how about this to match the exuberance and desperate urgency to express some grand idea that you hear in Beethoven?

_O father, it is alive-it is full of people-it has chil-
dren!
O now it seems to me it is talking to its children!
I hear it-it talks to me-O it is wonderful!
O it stretches-it spreads and runs so fast! O my
father,
It is so broad, it covers the whole sky!_

I can feel some of the sentiments in the late quartets in this passage. A lot of things about Whitman remind me of Beethoven.

_After the supper and talk-after the day is done,
As a friend from friends his final withdrawal prolonging,
Good-bye and Good-bye with emotional lips repeating,
(So hard for his hand to release those hands-no more will they
meet,
No more for communion of sorrow and joy, of old and young,
A far-stretching journey awaits him, to return no more,)
Shunning, postponing severance-seeking to ward off the last
word ever so little,
E'en at the exit-door turning-charges superfluous calling back-
e'en as he descends the steps,
Something to eke out a minute additional-shadows of nightfall
deepening,
Farewells, messages lessening-dimmer the forthgoer's visage
and form,
Soon to be lost for aye in the darkness-loth, O so loth to de-
part!
Garrulous to the very last._


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I rarely see a specific painting that reminds me of specific music, or vice versa. But the first movement of Beethoven's 9th evokes a suggestion of Michelangelo.


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## Guest (Jul 9, 2019)

The early "romantic" composers were greatly inspired by literature/poetry.

Schubert based many of his songs on the poetry of Goethe and Schiller . Schumann was much inspired by novelist John Paul Richter. Several Shakespeare plays formed the inspiration for works like Mendelssohn's _A Midsummer NIght's Dream_. Schumann wrote an overture for _Juilus Caeser_. Liszt based one if his symphonic poems on _Hamlet_.

In the 20th C Respighi wrote music _Three Botticelli Pictures _based on famous paintings by the Renaissance master Botticelli.

There must be hundreds of other examples.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

I've often ruminated on the final line of Robert Frost's _Mending Wall_, "He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors,'" and the irony of it. I think it applies to music as well.

In the early 20th century Schoenberg and his acolytes created a new kind of music that separated their century from the one before it -- and from all centuries before it. While Schoenberg said music had gone as far as it could in the 8-note scale, composers from past his time have shown the axiom untrue. Schoenberg built a fence but, in my opinion, not a neighbor.

The same is true for the late romantic period that preceded him. Brahms, the arch-conservative of the time who stuck to old tried-and-true forms, famously fought with Tchaikovsky over the direction of new music and his camp warred publicly with the likes of Wagner and Bruckner. I'm unsure who built the fence but it didn't create neighbors.

I think you can go back in time to any period in any art and find similar examples.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Rachmaninoff's first symphony is programmatically based on Tolstoy's _Anna Karenina_. Rachmaninoff uses the same epigram on the title page of the symphony as Tolstoy did at the beginning of his novel: _Vengeance is mine and I will repay_. The opening turn is the vengeance motive, the second theme of the first movement is Anna's theme.

Rachmaninoff's Prelude in B minor was supposedly inspired by Böcklin's painting "The Return." His Etude Op. 39#6 was inspired by _Little Red Riding Hood_. His first piano sonata is based on _Faust_.


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## Guest (Jul 9, 2019)

These connections are all very interesting...but not, I thought, what the OP was asking.


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## ECraigR (Jun 25, 2019)

Clairvoyance Enough said:


> Emily Dickinson's poems about "God" evoke the strangeness, sublimity (the almost terrifying kind, not just grandeur), and beauty of meditating on spirituality and the afterlife in a way that reminds me of Messiaen. I could easily imagine the haunting opening of Eclairs, or any number of his pieces really, accompanying these scenes and moods.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Linking Emily Dickinson and Messiaen is apt in more ways than one, as they both had a shared fondness for birds and utilized them extensively in their work. Also, the jarring imagery and shifts of focus in Dickinson's poems may be seen in Messiaen's unusual harmony and rhythm. They really are quite alike, in many ways. I wonder if there's any chance Messiaen read Dickinson? I think there are only a few translations of her in French, and are fairly recent. I don't know if Messiaen read English or not, but I somewhat doubt it.


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## Aleksandr Rachkofiev (Apr 7, 2019)

The Dickinson and Messaien is quite interesting, I would've never thought of that on my own, but it does make sense. Woodduck, I'd love to hear more about what in Beethoven's 9th suggests Michaelangelo to you; I'm not making the connection instantly.

MacLeod is a tad right here, mostly what I'm asking is for connections that aren't explicitly made by the composer. Adaptations are nice, but we all know them. What's more interesting to me is the original and not entirely obvious bridges people create between entirely separate art forms, as they're often a confluence of unique individual experiences as well as more clear thematic ties. 

A few more examples I can list off the top of my head (excuse the cliched language):

The 3rd movement of Korngold's F# Major Symphony (specifically the Albrecht recording) reminds me a lot of J.W. Turner's "The Fighting Temeraire, tugged to her last berth to be broken up, 1838". The dramatic and regal brass motif just exudes old valor and honor along with a simply massive scale. It doesn't demand respect, but one feels compelled to bow down in reverence. One can almost imagine observing a towering Man of War being dragged along, with its masts still held proudly high despite being almost a relic of another time. The final call of a horn solo creates an image of the mighty ship heading slowly off into the distance, and carry a sense of finality, signaling the end of an old age. 

The first movement of Scheherezade, the Sea and Sinbad's ship, makes me recall the seascape paintings of Ivan Aivazovsky. The intense rocking figures and breathtaking climax of Scheherezade mirror Aivazovsky's ships, tossed around by angry waves in an indifferent ocean. Both suggest a helplessness of human elements in the face of the unyielding power of nature, the sublime. It helps that both are examples of highly charged Russian romanticism as well. 

The last connection I can think of off the top of my head is between Dostoeyvsky's Crime and Punishment and Shostakovich's 8th String Quartet (spoilers for the book here). The darker elements of the first movement parallel the psychological torment of Raskolnikov's crippling guilt over his murder as it slowly eats away at him. The near manic depressed progression of the second resembles his fits of what Razhumikhin calls "illness" but what we readers really know are unrestrained expressions of his frustration (spurred by the deluded logic his guilt induces). The hectic and panic filled 3rd movement conjures images of Raskolnikov cracking under the pressures of investigator Porfiry's cunning and subtle questioning. The return to the somber themes that dominate the 4th movement again mirrors the torment of Raskolnikov, but this time with dawning resignation and hopelessness as he contemplates confessing to the Police and his friend, Sonia. The brief "light at the end of the tunnel" moment in the 4th movement hints at a flicker of hope in Raskolnikov, and the 5th seals his fate as he confesses and surrenders his freedom, beginning a long road to an ultimate redemption. This may have been hard to follow as simultaneously an analysis and plot summary, but hopefully many of you all are familiar with the novel.

I don't know, there haven't been too many responses on this thread, but I find these connections fascinating to think about and share.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_These connections are all very interesting...but not, I thought, what the OP was asking._

I speak for myself saying I answered this question, "...are there any authors or painters who make you think of certain composers/pieces?" I said Robert Frost and cited the reason(s).


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Aleksandr Rachkofiev said:


> This is a question I've wanted to ask for a long time, and I'm not quite sure if it's been done yet in any thread (and I'm sorry, the TC search algorithm just doesn't do it for me), but are there any authors or painters who make you think of certain composers/pieces? I always have found it fascinating to connect the different arts and find precisely what makes one connect them so naturally. It's already been done countless times in adaptations (Dostoevsky's The Gambler turned Prokofiev Opera, Bocklin's and Rachmaninoff's Isle of the Dead, Ravel's Gaspard de la Nuit inspired by Bertrand's poems of the same name), but what connections have you found that are original/unintended?
> 
> One that I've been thinking of recently is Prokofiev's Third Symphony, The Fiery Angel, (particularly its finale) and the most famous of Goya's black paintings, Saturn Devouring his Son. Both conjure such vivid images of all-consuming evil in this world, either through insanity by demonic possession (Prokofiev) or a lust for power and control that is sort of a demonic possession in itself (Goya).
> 
> So share your connections! I'm eager to hear the creativity!


The structure of Milan Kundera's _Immortality _ was inspired by musical counterpoint.

Many pieces of music are site (i.e. building) specific, from Dufay's Nuper Rosarum Flores to Xenakis's Polytope de Cluny.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

I'm not sure this piece qualifies to the OP, but I thought of Nocturnal by Britten. My first love in modern classical guitar music. It is a clever variation on Dowlands "Come heavy sleep, the image of true death". I suspect the composer uses the text as much as the phrases in the original, to build this masterpiece.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

There are a few pieces that I associate with something from a different art for (usually a painting or a novel). I often get pictures in my mind when I listen to music, anyway, and sometimes these are existing and known art works. There are a few pieces of music that when I hear them still remind me of a book I read at the same time as I was getting to know the music. And there are both literary works and paintings that were apparently inspired by or even based on music (Pollock is a fine example) and when you know this you can often get to hear the link, too. 

I think, though, that what interests me more is trying to link music in general from a period with art and literature from the same period (like the range of Romantic music with the range of Romantic art or literature). Often this is not at all easy or obvious.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

By Sophie Gengembre Anderson (1823-1903): "Somewhere high on a hill, a bonny youth pauses from picking wildflowers to glory in the meadowlark's trill." The look is in her eyes:


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