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Composers as Works of Art

Sibelius’s Second Symphony and Gallen-Kallela’s Lake View

Sibelius takes long walks in the forest mist. Gallen-Kallela paints a realistic yet mythic Finnish landscape. Miniature trees in the foreground suggest Finland’s forests to come. Brushstrokes like breath or delicate oars cause the lake’s many ripples. In Sibelius’s strings a brooding three note pattern of rising notes, each one louder. They are someone’s footsteps, […]

Categories
Composers as Works of Art

Josquin’s Ave Maria and Raphael’s Madonna of the Goldfinch 

Josquin’s opening leap of a fourth in the highest voice. We are suddenly looking up. Ave Maria (Hail to Mary). Raphael paints her so beautifully she must be divine. Beauty equals God in the Renaissance. That’s how they interpreted Plato. That’s how they interpreted this world, too.  Raphael’s flowers, trees, and distant mountains an exquisitely […]