On Thursday, May 15, students from the piano studio taught by George and Marjorie Olsen Chandler Professor of Music Catherine Kautsky, and Art of the 19th Century, an art history course taught by Associate Professor of Art History Elizabeth Carlson, joined together for a vibrant presentation of music and visual art. This unique performance, which took place in Harper Hall, consisted of art history students introducing the context behind various 19th-century artworks and the connections between specific pieces of physical art and pieces of music. These artworks were then projected on a screen while pianists from Kautsky’s studio performed the pieces of music.
“Musicians and artists in the 19th century were so influenced by each other, as well as by growing ideas of Romanticism, industrialization and Orientalism, that it created this perfect opportunity for juxtaposition and discussions,” said junior Finn Mercury Thornton, a student presenter at the event. Containing eleven piano pieces accompanied by sixteen artworks, the event was a colorful collage of auditory and visual experiences.
First, junior Honor Winter introduced the ideals of 19th-century Romanticism through an analysis of Caspar David Friedrich’s 1822 “Woman at the Window.” Alongside the Friedrich, senior Nathanial Tang performed the third movement of Robert Schumann’s 1837 “Fantasiestücke” entitled “Warum?” (“Why?” in English), an inquisitive-sounding piece with an inconclusive ending.
Next was junior Dashiel Byrne presenting Francisco Goya’s 1777 “Maja with Parasol,” an early work from the Spanish artist depicting the first stages of courtship. Sonically, this work was accompanied by sophomore Kyle Roberts performing the first movement of Enrique Granados’ 1911 “Goyescas,” a suite entirely inspired by Goya.
Third, senior Joseph Carpenter played Frédéric Chopin’s 1839 “Prelude in A Minor Op. 28, No. 2” against the backdrop of Eugène Delacroix’s 1839 “Hamlet and Horatio in the Graveyard,” presented by sophomore Jasper DiGennaro-Willcox. These two 19th-century giants were characterized by gloomy, hauntingly beautiful themes and genre-defining pieces.
Following the Delacroix, an examination of the nocturne, a type of piano composition popularized by Chopin, was given by junior Yedid Bonfil-Moranchel in order to describe James McNeill Whistler’s 1872-77 “Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket.” Whistler, a London-based artist working slightly later than Chopin, was inspired by this musical form depicting the liminal space between waking and dreaming — “Nocturne” roughly translates to “Night song” — to create a series of paintings blurring the line between traditional notions of realism and the more emotional effects of the void of the night. This painting plays with this idea through its paint splatter effect, creating the image of a firework that has just gone off, leaving behind falling sparks and a faintly illuminated landscape. This almost impressionistic piece was juxtaposed with Nicklas Hull’s performance of Chopin’s 1845-46 “Nocturne in B major Op. 62, No. 1.” The musical form of the nocturne was exemplified in Hull’s playing, capturing the expressive and tranquil mood present in Chopin’s writing.
Presenting “Schloss Callenberg: The Duchess’s Sitting-Room,” painted by G. K. Rothbart in 1845, was sophomore Val Muzzarelli. This work depicted a Biedermeier interior, a popular style of interior design in Austria from the 1830s to the 1850s. Connecting to these themes of domestic life, home-schooled student Owen Antiles and first-year Nayantara Vyas performed two movements of Franz Schubert’s 1823 Zwölf Deutsche Tänze, translating to “Twelve German Dances.”
Next, sophomore Melanie Laguna discussed Georges Seurat’s 1884-86 “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte.” Seurat created this gigantic 6.8-by-10-foot painting utilizing Pointillism, a technique he pioneered himself. Inspired by optical illusions and color theory, the series of tiny dots, which appear to be complete chaos upon close inspection, unify into singular shades and bold images as the observer steps back to take in the work as a whole. This work was paired with a medley of songs from Stephen Sondheim’s 1984 musical based on Seurat’s work, “Sunday in the Park With George,” performed by senior Ben Keating. Much like Seurat’s pointillism, Sondheim’s chords, built upon atonal clusters, appear to be a mess of dissonances at first listen, but when heard in context, they create beautiful washing textures, interwoven with simple melodies.
Sophomore Emma Barry then spoke about three Claude Monet paintings — “Antibes,” (1888) “Waterloo Bridge” (1899-1903) and “Water Lilies” (1916-1919) — highlighting the Impressionist movement of the late 1800s. Monet’s paintings were a reaction against the traditional notions of Neoclassicism, and he instead chose to capture the general feeling of his subject. These works were coupled with senior Jada Adamson-Tate’s performance of a 1901 piece by Maurice Ravel, titled “Jeux d’eau” (translating to “water games”). Akin to Monet’s breaking of artistic norms, Ravel was labeled as an Impressionist composer, pushing the boundaries of tonality. This piece pairs perfectly with Monet’s swirling aquatic paintings, evoking the bubbling and rushing of a river through whole-tone scales and repeated melodic ideas which flow into one another.
Thornton then presented Mochizuki Gyokusen’s Sanjō Bridge, a screen with a painted landscape scene. This work was chosen in order to comment on the Orientalism common in 19th-century Europe, wherein artists and composers developed fetishized myths of East Asian and Middle Eastern cultures. Fittingly, this was paired with Artiles’ performance of Claude Debussy’s “Estampes: I. Pagodes” (1903) a piece inspired by Balinese architecture and Gamelan music.
Adamson-Tate returned and was joined on stage by senior Jasmine Maller to perform two duets from Cécile Chaminade’s 1890 “6 Pièces Romantiques,” “I. Primavera” and “V. Danse Hindoue.” These pieces were paired with Berthe Morisot’s “The Butterfly Hunt” (1874) and Mary Cassatt’s “In the Box” (1879), both works by woman artists examining femininity in the late 1800s.
Next, senior Mariana Zendejas presented Jean-Victor Bertin’s 1810 “Woodland Scene With Nymphs and a Herm” and Maurice De Vlaminck’s 1905 “Autumn Landscape.” These works provide insight into the evolution of nature scenes — the Bertin is a dramatic scene of a lush forest, while the Vlaminck is a harsh mix of reds and oranges in an Impressionistic style.
Accompanying these two works was Tang’s performance of two short movements from Edward MacDowell’s 1896 “Woodland Sketches” entitled “To a Wild Rose” and “In Autumn.”
Subsequently, first-year Elise Ross performed Arnold Schoenberg’s “Sechs Kleine Klavierstücke, Op. 19,” an extremely chaotic-sounding modernist piece. This was matched with a portrait of the composer himself by Egon Schiele, presented by Coop Boeckh.
Finally, Thornton coupled Vincent Van Gogh’s 1889 “Starry Night” with first-year Sienna Falanaga’s performance of Johannes Brahms’ 1892 “Capriccio in D Minor” from “Seven Fantasies.” Thornton noted that as a primarily orchestral composer, Brahms found himself returning to solo piano repertoire at the end of his life in the 1890s, bringing with him a unique ear for composition which Thornton described as “turbulent.” This agitation is the perfect pair to Van Gogh’s swirling brush strokes in the sky of “Starry Night.” This blend of a sonically spiraling flurry of Romantic piano accompanying the natural and raw beauty of Van Gogh’s landscape enveloped the audience with an almost overwhelming feeling of spectacular awe.
The “Music Meets Art in the 19th Century” event was a fantastic fusion of the musical and visual arts. The unique format of a brief presentation on the historical context of the artwork and piano pieces helped the audience truly get a better picture of the artistic landscape of the nineteenth century. Combining the images of different works of art with a soundtrack of connected music elevated both art forms to an entirely new interdisciplinary experience that was perfectly suited to both music and art lovers alike.