# Images you associate with music



## Aurelian (Sep 9, 2011)

Do you have images you associate with some works? Here are mine:

Mozart's 41st Symphony, 2nd movement: looking at the stars on a clear night
4th movement, finale: a huge fireworks display

Beethoven's 7th Symphony, 2nd movement: Napoleon's starving and exhausted foot soldiers marching
32nd Piano Sonata, 2nd movement, finale: floating out to sea


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I associate "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas with Waffles with peanut butter and maple syrup...I don't know why....I must have been eating them while watching that movie once as a wee lad and the connection stuck....

but alas we are talking about classical music....so I digress.


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## Polednice (Sep 13, 2009)

Holst's Planets with... dinosaurs.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Shostakovich's Cello Concerto no. 1 - still wincing nervously over the official denunciations from which he and others suffered and the brutal folly of his nation's judicial meat-grinder but at last managing to stand unbroken before a picture of Stalin and emphatically give it the finger as the DSCH theme (and variants of it) resounds in the final movement.

The third movement of Bruckner's unfinished 9th symphony - I can visualise Anton's spirit finally taking leave of his body and walking into the light while that gorgeous melody provides the backdrop. If this is what he himself was hoping to convey then perhaps the never-to-be-realised final movement represented his hopes of what he might find once he was there.


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## EarthBoundRules (Sep 25, 2011)

When I hear the Dies Irae from Berlioz' _Grande Messe des Morts_, I imagine a peasant who has made his way past a giant field, looking up at a towering black castle on a mountain above with thousands of singers surrounding the base.

The beginning of the 5th movement from Mahler's _Resurrection Symphony_ makes me visualize, from a worm's eye view, a prince dressed in red mounted on a shining brown horse as it raises its front hooves in the air.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

When I hear the second movement of Beethoven's 7th symphony, I picture the biblical Exodus. As the death angel strikes at midnight, the former slaves leave one by one from their houses, growing into a greater number as they unite, pierced by wailings from the Egyptians. Then the scene shifts to the Angel of His Presence overhead guiding and protecting them, the music shifting back and forth until the last of the liberated slaves leaves. 

Beethoven's 9th symphony pictures the first two chapters in Genesis: in the first movement, it shows God in creation, creating order from chaos; in the second movement, the son of God filling the heaven and earth; the serene third movement picturing the spirit of God moving over the creation declaring it good; and the last movement, the voice of man in the garden proclaiming the two greatest commandments: to love God and to love mankind. 

Fanciful, to be sure, but those are my pictures. I can also analyze them musically, but it isn't as much fun.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Prokofiev's 2nd Symphony, II: Theme and Variations, I associate with a tragic seduction/nightmare/murder scene.

Shostakovich's 1st Symphony, IV, I associate with a knight battling chaos/darkness/wickedness to save his maiden, but she dies in its grasp. However, he awakens her from the spell with a kiss, and they escape off into the unknown.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

I always think of Mozart's operas (and Paul Verlaine's poetry) in connection with Watteau's paintings:














































It seems I am not alone in this association:










Watteau's paintings always strike me as joyful, playful, flirtatious, graceful, elegant, and even childlike... but underneath the surface there is a wistfulness... a sense that its all a dream that will sooner or later fade into nothingness... and this is something I have long sensed in Mozart's music. There is this elegance and formal beauty, wit, grace, and joy. The composer seems almost to be dancing for joy in a childlike manner... until... every now an then... he pauses for a moment of reflection... a moment of the most profound and wistful melancholy that suggests that the dream is about to end... and then he goes off dancing once again.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Shostakovich's 1st Symphony, IV, I associate with a knight battling chaos/darkness/wickedness to save his maiden, but she dies in its grasp. However, he awakens her from the spell with a kiss, and they escape off into the unknown.


I'm listening to that now. Your scenario does fit! Although it sounds like the poor knight is going up against cannons and machine guns - he sure has courage.


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## Crudblud (Dec 29, 2011)

One movement from Holst's Planets had a theme that made me think of a bear walking around when I was a kid. The bear never did anything, it just walked around. I remember it made me feel uneasy, and I always wanted that section to end.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Prokofiev's 2nd Symphony, II: Theme and Variations, I associate with a tragic seduction/nightmare/murder scene.


Oh, my goodness, there it is. Gonna have to lock up the kiddies before I hear this one again.


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## pluhagr (Jan 2, 2012)

Often times I'll be listening to music and see a continuous line with colors surrounding it. Usually not a concrete picture.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Stockhausen, _Gesang der Jünglinge_ - bowel movements.


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## Vaneyes (May 11, 2010)




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## eorrific (May 14, 2011)

Schubert's famous Piano Quintet in A major, 1st movement with a clear flowing brook. Then the 4th movement (the theme and variations) reminds me of being in a large room in the morning with sunlight coming through the windows.


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