|
|
About the Concert The Process This project was to unfold in a series of stages, the first of which was choosing the repertoire and setting the culmination date (4.20.07). Below is an ongoing online journal of the process from the first rehearsal through various conversations, recordings and individual thoughts and responses: February 1 February 7 February 14 February 24 March 13 March 20 March 22 April 13 February 1, 2007 "exploring the concert space + structure of the concert program" Robert: What I wanted to do is at least one painting for each piece of music but also with that painting... I always do preliminary sketches... probably some drawings... a combination of both... The way I build my paintings is probably similar to the way music is built, you know, with movements... Janey: Right, I was going to say, the Debussy has three movements and the Piazzolla has... three or four (obviously I have really learned the music yet!)... Robert: That's the idea; that we could show, visually, the strata in the paintings. The same way you hear in the music. Janey: Ok, cool. Robert: ... and we have a long enough wall where we could almost do that... start with the back walls using the preliminary stuff and early sketches and then have the final paintings... Janey: So do you think they should see the artwork before we even perform? I mean, they'll be hanging here but do you want to make a point of, 'the viewing starts at...' Robert: Oh, I see what you're saying. That's a great question. That's something we have to discuss because... definitely want people to stick around. I'd hate to have people come and just look at paintings and then they say, 'Oh, I gotta go, I can't stay for the music.' Janey: Right. Robert: How long would both pieces take? Janey: Well, the Debussy is... 12 and the Piazzolla, I think is around 20.... So it's not going to be a terribly long concert... Are you going to speak also? Robert: Sure, I'll speak. I'll say a few words... I'd like to speak more about the process because I've never done this before; never taken music and tried to translate it, visually. Yeah, I think y'all should perform and then have a 15 minute buffer for everyone to get in here and get seated and then we'll say, 'immediately following the pieces... meet the artists' so they get a chance to meet both of us. Jaeny: Do you think there should be a break between the pieces being performed? Robert: That's a good question. Do y'all usually have an intermission? Janey: Well, they're so short, I was just going to play them one after another, but if we want to... separate it in their minds... Robert: Do you introduce the pieces of music?... Let's say you do the Debussy and I could come up afterwards and say, 'if you want to stand and stretch your legs for two or three minutes while I talk', or 'coming up is the Piazzolla', and maybe I could give my feedback on how I feel about it and one of you could say, as a musician, how you feel. Janey: So we could have a discussion-y thing... Robert: So we could get our points of view... one wall could have the Debussy stuff and one, the Piazzolla... ... later, in the Library... First Debussy rehearsal with Janey+Katy, Robert observing Katy: So your inspirations are going to come from the works themselves and also your interaction with us, along the process. Anything else? Just... that's it? That's a lot, though... Robert: My idea is that this is an opportunity for me to get to come to some rehearsals with you; get to sit in, being my ignorant self with music, ask some questions about your opinions about stuff, share my ideas... I work from drawings, so I'll probably do a lot of sketching in rehearsals, of imagery that might come to mind. And also, I hope you'll get the chance to come to my studio so that you can see more of my process, because I don't know how this is going to be. I usually work from nature... as my foundation for all my work. It's abstract, my work. I'm assuming I'll stay with the same visual vocabulary. The works will be abstract but I don't know if I'll turn towards the natural world to find fragments of imagery, or if I'm going to see stuff in my subconscious mind... Janey: ... from hearing the music... Robert: ... yeah, I don't know what sound is going to do to me... Katy: why? Robert: ... when I'm objectively using it as the visual language... I'll take the tone of a piano... what color schemes? But also, what kind? Is it a line? Is it a form? Is it just a patch of color? I don't know, but that's what excites me. Katy: So have you done that before? Try to paint from sound? Robert: I've done it with my students. Janey: Really? Robert: I've taught projects where I would bring in Coltrane and Mozart and different types of music... "Now listen to the instruments of this classical music. What color would that violin be? Really high violin... is it screechy? What color might that tuba be?" The hard part for kids is: you're using an abstract visual image. How do they assemble it? Line drawings... "let your line move around your page, the way you feel the mood... you see the different speeds of lines..." So I've done it with these students, but never for creating works of art. Janey: But you do listen to music as you paint. Robert: Yeah, I listen to music most of the time when I'm painting. It's never one type - it changes. Janey: Come on, it's all country + western! Katy: Does it seep into your art? Robert: I think it has to... on a subconscious level February 7, 2007 First Piazzolla rehearsal with Janey + Dan + Robert observing Janey: It's very cold out, so we're drinking tea... Robert: ... In regards to being the visual artist as a part of your trio... because that's one element that's different. I don't think it's been done before... I mean, I don't know, have you ever been to a concert where they've shown work? Janey: I don't think so. Dan: I've seen concerts where there was a program that was designed based on an exhibit that people already knew was going to happen... Robert: Oh really? Dan: ... I'd even go so far as to say the curator of the exhibit chose works to go along with that, but I don't think I've ever seen something where the visual artworks are actually created in response to the process of rehearsing... RE: The transcription from the original guitar + flute version... Janey: Ok Dan, I wanted to ask... who did the violin transcription... is there one because I would love to get it. Dan: Right. It's not easy... Janey: ... to track down? Dan: No, I was going to say it's not the easiest thing to play on the violin. A lot of it is very flutistic, if that's a word. Janey: Flutistic! Dan: I don't know if there's a formal violin transcription... Janey: There are a few things that are different in the recording... an octave down, or something more idiomatic to the violin. What makes it Piazzolla + What makes it Tango... Dan: My general feeling about what's good about this piece is that... it's really accessible... all about sort of different styles of tango. But the thing that's bad about it is that it goes on for way too long and the material is not always good enough to justify how long it goes on. So I feel like the more we can do to ham up the performance aspect of it, the better. Janey: Ok. Dan: And the other thing, in terms of how people perform it, is that they don't make enough distinctions, stylistically, between the 1900 stuff and the, whatever, 1960 stuff. And in terms of tango, the styles being really different, it's not totally reflected in these pieces... Janey: Ok. I don't really know much about tango. [to Robert] Are you a tango-er? Robert: No, but that's why I'm interested. Dan: Right... Robert: My initial thoughts when I think Piazzolla, I automatically think of accordion... Dan: This is, just so you know a little background, Piazzolla - basically the reason why he's so famous is his playing and his groups, and most of that stuff that he wrote is for those groups. But he also had this side career as a writer of Classical scores, that Classical musicians ended up playing and that's sort of the most... I guess I'd say, diluted form of his music... Janey: Like Latin for non-Latin speakers? Dan: Yeah, right... which presents a little bit of a problem for us because we've got to inject the cool back into it. Robert: Was Piazzolla a guitarist? February 14, 2007 Debussy speaks JANEY: I've been putting together program notes for an upcoming recital upstate and I came across these great Debussy quotes in A History of Western Music in Documents by Weiss and Taruskin: "I have no faith in the supremacy of the C major scale. The tonal scale must be enriched by other scales. Nor am I misled by equal temperament. Rhythms are stifling. Rhythms cannot be contained within bars. It is nonsense to speak of "simple" and "compound" time. There should be an interminable flow of both. Relative keys are nonsense too. Music is neither major nor minor. Minor thirds and major thirds should be combined, modulation thus becoming more flexible. The mode is that which one happens to choose at the moment. It is inconstant. There must be a balance between musical demands and thematic evocation. Themes suggest their orchestra coloring" February 24, 2007 Janey's Recital At Binghamton Univeristy JANEY: The program included the Debussy Sonata, but with a pianist other than Katy. Actually, this pianist and I played it earlier this year for a conference, so it's our second go at it. At this point, it's really flowing well and I'm wondering what the effect will be of playing it with Katy, for whom this is a brand new work. Sometimes it's nice to have someone whose experienced a piece, and who has strong interpretive opinions, but it can also be dangerous to have one dominating voice in a collaboration. March 13, 2007 The first painting! JANEY: Robert emailed me a pdf of the first Debussy-inspired work. I was a little scared to open it and see it. The biggest reservation was that I really wanted to see it in person first. But... my curiosity got the better of me and I looked. I love it! And the colors are just right! I say "right", but it really doesn't mean there could be a "wrong" except that without realizing it consciously, the piece to me IS blue and green, with the oils thinned so much that they're almost like watercolors flowing into each other. Yes!!! March 20, 2007 Program notes JANEY: I did my "homework" last night. Program notes on the composers and the works to post on this site. After learning a little more about Piazzolla, I read through L'Histoire du Tango again, really trying to feel the evolution of the tango style... It really helped me to differentiate between the styles more! March 22, 2007 Brooklyn Studio Janey trekked out to Robert's studio in Fort Green to see the works in person and discuss how things are going...      Robert sits in on Debussy rehearsal, Janey + Katy + Robert look at the Concert Hall space again     April 13, 2007 Dan and Janey rehearse  Break time...  Things quickly deteriorate after the break...    |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
323 West 108th Street · New York, NY 10025 · (212) 663–6021 · Contact Us |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
