Night Music: Art by Moonlight
December 7
12:00pm
Primitive, 4th floor
Concert Program
Moondance (arr. for string quartet)
Van Morrison
Verklärte Nacht (Transfigured Night), Op. 4
Allegro Romanze- Andante Menuetto- Allegretto Rondo- Allegro
W. A. Mozart
Serenade in G Major, "Eine kleine Nachtmusik," K. 525
Arnold Schoenberg
From Chopin’s Nocturnes to Shakespeare’s plays, night has been a frequent setting for the magical, mysterious and the lively.
The program culminates in Verklärte Nacht. Schoenberg sets music to a poem by Richard Dehmel describing a man walking through a moonlit forest with his wife. The poem and music follow the pair as they walk and follows the man’s emotions throughout the night as he learns a disturbing secret from his wife. As his emotions change, so too does his experience of the night around him. We experience the shifting of the night with him through Schoenberg's music. Brian Sindler’s Nocturnes
Nocturne painting is a phrase coined by the artist James McNeill Whistler, the European-based American artist, who was active in the 19th century. A leading proponent of the philosophy of art for art’s sake, Whistler adapted the term nocturne from the musical phrase.
In music, a nocturne referred to a piece inspired by the night, evolving out of pieces that were intended to be played at night for an event like a party. Like in music, nocturnes came to describe paintings depicting scenes occurring in the night, twilight, a veil of light or the absence of direct light. As applied to Sindler’s works, it characterizes paintings depicting night scenes as well as those capturing the periphery of darkness; moments when light has receded and we are left with an atmosphere filled with mood, wonder and anticipation. Sindler's nocturne paintings have been described as moody and evocative; gateways to memories we all hold and share. Whether memories appear sharp and clear or faint and fragile; they do not involve our senses when recounted. In other words, memories exist outside the physical world; although that is where they may be ignited. The common denominator linking all memories is they emerge as pictures in our mind's eye; and although these pictures may appear in varying degrees of intensity, they are like bridges connecting us to other people, places, times and situations. Ultimately, his paintings portray a world he feels more than sees. They are not mere documentations of outdoor scenes; but interpretive renderings leaving genuine impressions.