The debate over the merits of music based on or seeking to reflect or represent extramusical ideas versus those of pure, ‘abstract’ musical creations has not calmed over the years.  On one side, people laud absolute music, claiming extramusical references or inspirations to be crutches allowing weaker pieces to be successfully marketed, or at the very least distractions from the internal musical processes.  On the other hand, proponents of program music maintain the validity of interdisciplinary inspiration in the creation of any work of art, and posit that an even greater challenge faces the programmatic composer, to create unity not only within the context of the composition but with the object of derivation.  Ultimately, as a composer, this writer feels that program music should be judged on 2 criteria: primarily, whether or not the piece functions as a unified whole regardless of program (that is, the same criteria often used to comment on absolute music); and secondarily whether the composer achieves whatever link s/he is seeking to the extramusical source.  The first defines whether the piece itself is finely crafted; the second justifies the decision to create a programmatic piece in the first place.

What is interesting in the case of this new CD from the Boston-based Montage Music Society is that it presents the work of 4 composers who, while creating music with some connection to various pieces of visual art, each approach the nature of that connection differently.
Matthew Harris’ Starry Night: Seven Paintings for Violin, Cello and Piano not only used paintings from New York’s MOMA, but organized the movements in approximately the order in which one would encounter them when walking through the galleries.  The music is organized around a recurring germ of descending half steps, providing unity and a kind of subconscious idée fixe, and each movement relates to its partner painting in a unique way.  The 5th movement, Etude (based on Matisse’s The Piano Lesson, and reminiscent of the similarly-inspired Enigma Variation) not only evokes the piano pupil and his teacher (the cello) musically, but is carved in the sharp, jagged lines of Matisse’s painting.  In the 6th, Picasso’s La Persistencia de la memoria, the half-step melodic germ repeats in numb, manic obsession amid the developing musical texture.  By these and other means, Harris manages to not describe the visual image of the painting but rather to evoke the same mood the painter had in mind.

In contrast, Stephen Paulus’ Art Suite for Cello and Piano displays a much more tangible and immediate connection to the visual representation of the paintings, although it seems more nuance evolves during the course of the work.  In the program booklet, each painting Paulus uses is accompanied by a work of prose or poetry, from which it seems he derives the majority of the inspiration for the music.  This triangular-compositional approach is akin to a talented impersonator speaking as someone speaking as someone else; the challenges of this are obvious and Paulus’ work comes off with a simplistic elegance which shows he is in complete control throughout the creative process.

The next 2 pieces on the CD, Libby Larsen’s Black Birds, Red Hills (viola, clarinet, piano), and Andrew List’s Noa Noa: A Gauguin Tableau (violin, clarinet, piano) each take a more nuanced and slightly metaphysical approach to the standard concept of ‘program music’.  Larsen creates a 5-movement (more accurately, 4-movement plus 1-phrase) ‘portrait’ of 6 Georgia O’Keeffe paintings, and strives to make the music embody the simplistic objects the artist chooses as her subjects, imbuing them with a similar sense of intense ‘hidden life’.  The 1st 4 movements are almost exactly the same length, around 2 minutes, and the last sigh heard in the final 30-second coda, “Looking,” is a simple gesture made pregnant by all the rich symbolism which came before.  Finally, List’s Tableau seeks to answer, in 3 movements, Gauguin’s mural Where Do We Come From?  What Are We?  Where Are We Going? through a journey from animalistic brutality, to hyper-intellectual elitism, to spiritual transcendence.

The Montage Society, which commissioned all the pieces on the CD, should be commended for its fresh perspective on a musical phenomenon often treated as banal.  The playing is exemplary across all tracks, and one senses the cohesion of the ensemble and its dedication to this recording project.

The CD booklet is handsomely designed totally in full-color, featuring many of the paintings referenced in the music.  Also, there is a printed link to Montage’s website where larger images can be seen alongside snippets of the music, which was a welcome treat (as well as a novel way to increase site traffic).  The diversity of the music and the musical inspiration makes this recording attractive to listeners on both sides of the program music debate.  The craft and commitment of the composers and performers alike give this project its strength and effectiveness.

© 2009 Patrick Valentino