Libby Larsen’s excellent "Black Birds, Red Hills:- A Portrait Of Six Paintings Of Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) for B-flat Clarinet, Viola and Piano," written in 1996, arrives next. This piece is accompanied by Libby’s own explanation of how the work inspired each interpretation. It is a beautifully constructed piece which captures the painters fascination with the effects of time.
Lastly, we have Andrew List’s work "Noa Noa:- A Gauguin Tableau for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano," which was written as recently as 2008. The three sections pose the unanswerable questions raised in Gauguin’s 1897 work, now on display at the Museum Of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, ‘Where Do We Come From? ‘What Are We?’ ‘Where Are We Going?’
Noa Noa was the title that Paul Gauguin gave to his Tahitian diary. The large canvass is viewed from right to left whilst addressing recurring questions that surround our existence.
List's musical interpretation journeys through the three facets of human consciousness. There is a bold, confidence within the first movement. Hopefulness is expressed within the second, before the final movement develops an achingly beautiful theme of spiritual searching.
The set, a walk through a sumptuous gallery or some of the world’s finest art,
achieves the Society’s aims of encouraging the listener to fully explore the visual image that acted as its musical inspiration. Together the two art forms combine powerfully resulting in a thought provoking re-examination of the original masterpieces.
The whole is performed with an elegant and careful clarity by the society who successfully achieve their desire to connect the “ear to the eye” with some majestic performances.
For a more detailed account of the album please visit The Montage Music Society Starry Night Project website and follow the links to their home page.
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