Tate St Ives
8 September – 12 September 2004
More and more parallels between music and graphic art force themselves upon my consciousness – Paul Klee (1905)
Visual Music Week complements Tate St Ives’ current exhibitions by David Nash and Mariele Neudecker as well as exploring the themes prevalent in the St Ives School Modernists and their musical counterparts. Examining the interaction of art, music and dance, this September Tate St Ives will be bringing together a series of innovative events and premières. The week is a collaboration between the Education Department at Tate St Ives, composer and writer Douglas Young, violinist Peter Sheppard Skærved and art historian Simon Shaw-Miller of Birkbeck College, University of London.
This will be the first comprehensive retrospective of the colourful, exotic music of Priaulx Rainier (1903 – 86). Rainier often came to St Ives and was a close friend of Barbara Hepworth, with whom she shared something of her abstract aesthetic. What Rainier achieved in her abstract musical sounds, Hepworth expressed in her abstract sculpture. The artist Mariele Neudecker and composer Jeremy Dale Roberts will be in residence, alongside an exciting group of internationally acclaimed musicians, equally renowned for their exploration of old and new music.
Commissioned by Tate St Ives especially for Visual Music Week, the world première of Douglas Young’s River Form for musicians and film will play on 11 September. In 1914 the Dadaist artist and composer, Yefim Golyscheff, a remarkable figure in the history of modern art, wrote possibly the first dodecaphonic (12-tone) composition, Zwölftondauer-musik. This will have its first public performance in Europe at St Ives, performed by members of the Kreutzer Quartet.
Other highlights of the week include:
Hepworth and Rainier, a promenade concert at Tate St Ives, exploring the friendship between Barbara Hepworth and composer Priaulx Rainier.
Bartok and Morandi, the music of Béla Bartok and Luigi Dallapiccola and the images of Italian painter Giorgio Morandi.
Schubert and Neudecker, Neudecker’s recent video work Winterrreise is the starting point for this audio-visual journey through Romanticism. Klee and Stravinsky, Simon Shaw-Miller demonstrates the links between the artist Paul Klee and neo-classical music. Ravel and Nash, Ravel’s sites auriculaires or landscapes in sound will be explored through the music of Messiaen, Tippett and Rainier.
Study Weekend, 10 - 12 September
Len Lye
The New Zealand artist and film-maker Len Lye first coined the phrase ‘Visual Music’ to describe his highly original films and kinetic sculptures. These will be discussed by Douglas Young, with the help of unique film and photographic material not previously seen in the UK.
Yefim Golyscheff
A member of the Central Dadaist Revolutionary Council, his musical composition for ‘a virgin, a postman and a range of kitchen utensils’ features in Simon Shaw-Miller’s exploration of his life and aesthetic. A paradigm of absence, this artist and musician has much to teach us despite the thin residue of his life’s work.
Dance archaeology
Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer, internationally known for their reconstructions of masterpieces by Nijinsky, including The Rite of Spring, will demonstrate, in dance and film, their renovations of lost ballets, including the Stravinsky/Balanchine Chant du Rossignol (1925), designed by Matisse, and a Prokofiev ballet designed by Naum Gabo.
Listing Information:
Daily (8,9,10 September)
Exhibition walk round with music
Tate St Ives
11.30, free with admission
Wednesday 8 September
Hepworth and Rainier
Tate St Ives
19.00, £10 (conc £8)
Exploring the unique relationship between Barbara Hepworth and the important South African composer Priaulx Rainier. Music will include the world premiere of Rainier’s ‘lost’ String Quartet of 1922, and Britten’s Metamorphoses after Ovid, with texts translated by Ted Hughes.
Refreshments included. Limited ticket availability. Early booking advised.
Thursday 9 September
Bartok and Morandi
St Ives Parish Church
19.30, £5 (conc £4)
The powerful, rhythmic music of Bartok, strongly coloured by Magyar folk music, was a favourite of Hepworth and Rainier. Jeremy Dale Roberts (born in 1934 and a pupil of Rainier) has selected Bartok’s 2nd Violin Sonata to complement his beautiful new piano composition Oggetti, a homage to the Italian artist Giorgio Morandi.
Après Concert
St Ives Parish Church
21.30, free admission
Into the Night: A shorter concert of music from Schubert to George Crumb’s mediations on Giotto’s frescoes in Padua.
Friday 10 September
Study Weekend Launch
With Mariele Neudecker and musicians
Tate St Ives
19.00, £15
Exhibiting artist Mariele Neudecker will introduce her current exhibition followed by a short programme of music selected to explore wider contexts for her work.
Buffet supper Included. Limited ticket availability.
Schubert and Neudecker
St Ives Parish Church
21.00, £5 (conc £4)
Mariele Neudecker’s work has been strongly influenced by German Romantic art and music. Her film images will accompany Liszt’s transcriptions of Schubert’s Winterreise,and an astounding arrangement of Schubert’s song The Erlking for solo violin. The concert will present a wide-ranging exploration of musical Romanticism and its aftermath (including Charles Ives’ Halloween) and will conclude with Schubert’s last great work, the String Quintet of 1828.
Saturday 11 September
Visual Music: A Concert in Two Parts
St Ives Parish Church
19.30, £5 (conc £4)
Part One: Klee and Stravinsky
(introduced by Simon Shaw-Miller)
Part Two: Ravel and Nash
(musical landscapes)
Paul Klee was Stravinsky’s favourite artist, and part one of tonight’s concert pairs several of Stravinsky’s chamber works (including The Soldier’s Tale Suite) with Young’s short string quartet Mr Klee visits the Botanical Gardens, based on twelve of Klee’s miniature drawings and paintings.
Ravel coined the term ‘sites auriculaires’ to describe musical evocations of particular places or landscapes. Part two of our concert explores these landscapes in sound through the music of Debussy, Ravel and Messiaen, and Tippett’s 2nd Piano Sonata, influenced by the transformations of landscape in Hepworth’s sculpture. The programme will also include Rainier’s wonderful Suite for clarinet and piano(1942), which grew from her experiences of the African wilderness.
Visual Music Study Day
St Ives Guildhall
10.00 – 16.00, £30 (conc £25)
Len Lye
The New Zealand artist, film-maker and inventor of the ‘music video’, Len Lye first used the phrase ‘Visual Music’ to describe his highly original films and kinetic sculptures. These will be discussed by Douglas Young, with the help of unique film and photographic material not previously seen in the UK.
Yefim Golyscheff
Golyscheff was a member of the Central Dadaist Revolutionary Council, his musical composition for ‘a virgin, a postman and a range of kitchen utensils’ features in Simon Shaw-Miller’s exploration of his life and aesthetic. He is an artist and a musician who has much to teach us, despite the thin residue of his life’s work. The presentation will include the first European performance of his Zwölftondauer Musik (1914).
Dance Archaeology
Millicent Hodson and Kenneth Archer, internationally known for their reconstructions of masterpieces by Nijinsky, including The Rite of Spring, demonstrate, in dance and film, their renovations of lost ballets, including the Stravinsky/Balanchine Chant du Rossignol (1925), designed by Matisse, and a Prokofiev ballet designed by Naum Gabo.
Sunday 12 September
Family Day
Tate St Ives
11.30 – 15.00, free with admission
A continuous programme of music in the galleries – ideal for families and children.
Lunchtime Concerts
Admission by Programme
Wednesday 8 September
Beethoven and the Gothic
St Ives Parish Church
13.00
Beethoven, Friedrich and Goethe embody the spirit of early Romanticism, and define the century that followed. This exploration will include Beethoven’s fragmentary Faust, and Ferdinand Ries’ Sonata op 87.
Thursday 9 September
Triton, 1932
St Ives Parish Church
13.00
In 1932, the year of Calder’s first mobiles, Poulenc, Honneger, Milhaud and Prokofiev founded Triton. Reflecting the international make-up of the musicians and artists in Paris at the time, Triton was a reaction to Cocteau’s work and influence. Music will include Prokofiev’s exciting Sonata for Two Violins.
Friday 10 September
Jeune France, 1936
St Ives Parish Church
13.00
Jeune France was an essentially romantic reaction against the ‘cool’ tendencies of Les Six and the Parisian avant-garde. Its founders, who included Messiaen, and Jolivet, aimed to restore ‘sincerity, generosity and artistic good faith’ to music. Messiaen was profoundly influenced by Goethe’s Colour Theory and Surrealism.
Saturday 11 September
Der Blaue Reiter 1911 ‘Improvisation, Impression
and Compositions’
St Ives Guildhall
13.00
The 1911 manifestation of the Blaue Reitersought to ‘explain the characteristics of the age’. Its members included Kandinsky, Marc, and Schoenberg who also exhibited paintings, and whose Theory of Harmony had a profound influence on the group. Music by Schoenberg, Webern and Hauer.
While every effort has been made to provide accurate information the programme may be subject to minor alteration.
Ticket Prices and Booking Information
Weekend package: Allows admission to Tate St Ives, and all events on Friday PM, Saturday AM and PM
£50 (conc £45)
Call 01736 796226/ 01736 791105
Email tatestivesinfo@tate.org.uk
Visit www.tate.org.uk/stives