Brush Strokes

Description

Alyssa Morris’s 2104 Brush Strokes, for flute, oboe, and bassoon, is a musical depiction of specific works of art. Each movement briefly tells the story of a particular artist and their painting technique.

The first movement, Monet, depicts the constant movement of water that is present in many of Claude Monet’s works, water lilies being the subject of approximately 250 of his paintings. This movement depicts Monet’s swift painting and the constant changing of light with frequently shifting chord progressions.

The second movement, Seurat, is a musical representation of the Georges Seurat’s pointillistic works. This movement is primarily inspired by Seurat’s paintings A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte and The Circus. The music in the movement Seurat aims to depict the pointillist aspects of this artwork by frequently shifting the instrumentation and bouncing the melody from one player to another, and also by the pointed and light attack of every note.

The third movement is Van Gogh. This movement depicts on his best known paintings, Starry Night. Starry Night is filled with curves and rhythm, and the cypress tree in the front exudes a dark loneliness. The movement Van Gogh moves with a slow, rhythmic pulse, and a curving melodic contour. The overall darkness of the movement depicts the loneliness of the cypress tree, and of Van Gogh.

Pollock, the final movement, is a musical representation of the works of Jackson Pollock and his famous ‘drip’ technique. This movement is fast and full of energy, with chromatic and scalar flourishes depicting the paint being dripped, poured, and flung onto the canvas.

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