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MUSEUM QUALITY

MUSEUM QUALITY

In addition to its orchestral concerts
at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Brooklyn Philharmonic schedules
more intimate programs at various venues in the borough, including
its collaboration with the Brooklyn Museum in the chamber-music
series "Music Off the Walls."



"Image and Time," this season’s inaugural "Music
Off the Walls" presentation on Jan. 30 in the museum’s Iris
and B. Gerald Cantor Auditorium, explores the theme of time in
both music and painting, including the elegiac work for piano
and cello by Antonin Dvorak, "Silent Woods," as well
as three works by American composers.



Opening the concert are selections from the composition "Portraits,"
by Virgil Thomson, who musically sketched likenesses of friends,
colleagues and other artistically and socially important individuals.
And following the Dvorak work is "Shimmerings" by Ira
Mowitz.



The "Image and Time" program ends with the world premiere
of a pared-down version of Stephen Paulus’ "Voices from
the Gallery," which brings to life 11 classic paintings
through a synthesis of music, text (by author and playwright
Joan Vail Thorne) and narration (by Janet Bookspan).



The 55-year-old Paulus, a New Jersey native who currently lives
in Minnesota, discussed his work in an exclusive telephone interview
with GO Brooklyn.



"This is actually the chamber version of an earlier work
that I composed in 1990 and which had its premiere at Merkin
Hall [in Manhattan] in the fall of 1991," he explains. "Eleanor
Eisenminger, leader of the Atlantic Sinfonietta, originally commissioned
it and recommended working with Janet [Bookspan], and Janet in
turn steered me towards Joan [Vail Thorne]."



Since the 32-minute "Voices from the Gallery" is a
kind of musical tour through several works of art, Paulus and
his collaborators decided to seek out iconic works.



"We picked out paintings that we thought people would be
mostly familiar with," he says, "and several are pretty
major works. We hoped people would say, ’Oh I know that,’ when
they heard the music. Most people could have [the paintings]
in mind without having to see pictures of them."



Among the paintings in "Voices from the Gallery" –
slides of which will be projected during the performance – are
such memorable images as Botticelli’s "The Birth of Venus,"
Hieronymus Bosch’s "The Garden of Earthly Delights,"
Grant Wood’s "American Gothic," and Leonardo da Vinci’s
"Mona Lisa," all of which beg the question: what can
one say that’s original musically about these familiar images?



"I approached all the paintings from a fresh perspective,"
Paulus notes. "’What’s the painting about?’ and ’Is the
Mona Lisa smiling, or what?’ Joan’s text represents those questions
wonderfully, and I tried to make my [’Mona Lisa’] music sound
ambivalent, like the painting. ’What is that about?’ is easy
to do with music, since there are so many nuances to develop.



"I also had the additional benefit of having Joan’s text,
and we consciously chose paintings that would give us variety,"
the composer continues. "Having decided on a diverse range
of art, coupled with Joan’s text – which mirrors what goes on
in each of the paintings – the music was able to help create
a dense context.



"As an example, during the section on ’American Gothic’
[Grant Wood’s ultra-familiar painting of a Midwestern farmer
with a pitchfork and the stern-looking woman standing next to
him], Joan wrote the line ’what ya’ll looking here fer?’ and
the music gives us a sort of bump and grind sound instead of,
say, shimmering strings. Likewise, for [Marcel Duchamp’s] ’Nude
Descending a Staircase,’ I wrote descending scales of music to
complement the action in the painting."



There have been many famous pieces of music based on paintings
– Ottorino Respighi’s "Three Botticelli Pictures" and
Paul Hindemith’s "Mathis Der Maler" Symphony immediately
come to mind – but Paulus sees "Voices from the Gallery"
differently.



"Since I already had Joan’s text, I wanted to musically
embellish the words which are already based on the paintings,"
he says. "For Renoir’s ’The Dance at Bougival,’ it was obvious:
to have the music ’whip’ around like the dancers in the picture."



Paulus is pleased that "Voices" has bucked an unfortunate
trend for new works by sticking around for 15 years: Bookspan
herself has narrated performances of "Voices" over
40 times (and she’ll narrate at the Brooklyn Museum, too).



"Generally – unless it’s Prokofiev’s ’Peter and the Wolf’
– pieces for narrator and orchestra are not high on listener’s
or orchestras’ lists," he says. "So I’m amazed and
happy it’s had a life of its own. But it’s all due to Jan and
Joan."



Considering its subject matter, a performance of "Voices
from the Gallery" in a museum would seem a no-brainer. But
Paulus says it hasn’t been that easy.



"We had always wanted to do it in a museum for obvious reasons,
but it’s never happened until now," he concedes, "and
for that I thank Ted Wiprud [the Brooklyn Philharmonic’s curator
of education and community engagement], who asked if I could
create this chamber version for them.



"So now we feel like we’re finally bringing it home."



The Brooklyn Philharmonic’s "Music
off the Walls: Image and Time" concert, featuring Thomson,
Mowitz, Dvorak and Paulus, will be held in the Iris and B. Gerald
Cantor Auditorium of the Brooklyn Museum, 200 Eastern Parkway
at Washington Avenue in Prospect Heights, on Jan. 30 at 3 pm.
Tickets are $15; for more information, call (718) 636-4100 or
visit www.brooklynphilharmonic.org.