Albrecht D\u00fcrer’s Material World<\/a>, inspired him to write the new musical composition ‘Melancholia & the Angel’. The exhibition was co-curated by Professor Ed Wouk, Professor Sasha Handley, Professor Stefan Han\u00df, and Imogen Holmes-Roe.<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
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I made many attempts at this piece for violin and piano \u2013 the piece that would eventually become Melancholia & the Angel<\/em>. None could lift off the ground. The balance between craft and creativity was off. It was only after seeing the wonderful exhibition D\u00fcrer’s Material World<\/em> at the Whitworth Art Gallery in Manchester that the impasse was broken. I was flying again. In D\u00fcrer’s Melencolia I<\/em> of 1514, an angel is surrounded by the tools of artistic creation \u2013 scales, a compass, millstone, burin, syringe, hammer, nails, saw, straightedge, mathematical instruments and charts. But the angel is depressed. Nothing is working. Inspiration is lacking and, creatively, they cannot fly. The whole exhibition helped me to re-frame the artistic problem. The problem rests in straddling that tension between technique and free invention, enjoying the pull in both directions and allowing harmony to emerge of its own accord. I had the idea of composing music about the process of composing music \u2013 which for me is what D\u00fcrer’s image is about in visual art.<\/p>\n\n
This work of mine is a short meditative invention. Inspired by the exhibition, I was interested not just in what a work of art is but also how it is made and what it is made from. In this duet, technical devices are present: two isorhythms (rhythm), two borrowed tone-rows (pitch) & two canons (texture). Only the isorhythms (built from the magic square in D\u00fcrer’s etching) contribute to the heart of the music. Around all this the invention is free.\u00a0 The tone rows and the canons appear like discarded objects. The tone rows (one from Arnold Schoenberg\u2019s Op. 23, the other by Bill Evans) are pizzicato and alien. The canons use violin harmonics and the upper register of the piano, as if from another dimension. These tools are abandoned \u2013 scattered, like the tools in D\u00fcrer’s etching. Wherever the spirit is in this music of mine, it does not reside in the techniques. Some techniques are necessary to channel it. The trick is in finding the right ones. The others must be cast aside.<\/p>\n