TALKING PICTURES, SOUNDING SENSE

When narrative in literature and poetry has the capacity to inspire the eye and ear with equal force, composers and painters alike are found rushing to re-deliver that impact in the language of paint and music. This is how it looks, they say, or, this is how it sounds; and what they say suggests that music and art created from the same poem or story can often reward our attention to both of them at once. Talking Pictures, Sounding Sense will offer some striking examples of this from both art and music. Here are five especially memorable moments when painters and composers (sometimes more than one of each) have met like moths round thecandle-flame of the same narrative.

PLAYING AT DARE

The poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, dates from c.1375. It was 1991 be fore Birtwistle’s opera had its premier. The original manuscript’s art-work is beguiling; there are some very fine 15th c calendar illustrations, and a painting by Burne-Jones. And the task of all of them is to witness Camelot’s gate-crashing giant and Gawain’s riveting pilgrimage of endurance and temptation.

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