Classically Speaking

"Corrette was a prolific composer, but his work died
before he did." -Boisgelou

While statues may not be put up in honor of critics, a recent artwork was inspired by criticism of an eighteenth-century composer. Artist PJ Zimmerlink heard a story on the radio about a composer of whom it was said "his music died before he did."  He wrote down the phrase, and then later painted a landscape that incorporated the words.

The work was then displayed at the Greensburg Art Club, where it was a very popular part of his exhibit, with many people asking the source of the quotation. Some suggested that it was a description of Kurt Cobain. Zimmerlink knew it wasn't Cobain, but couldn't remember who it was, so he called West Virginia Public Radio to ask: who was that composer that you played a year and a half ago who they say his music died before he did?

We were able to solve the mystery! The composer was Michel Corrette (1707-1795). Tastes changed over the course of the 18th century, but Corrette did not change with the times, prompting this striking turn of phrase in a critique of his work. The story is found in the liner notes of my of my favorite Christmas-albums-that-aren't-too-aggressively-Christmasy: Corette: Symphonies de Noels, Concertos Comiques, performed by Arion.

Thank you very much to PJ Zimmerlink for sharing these photos of his work and his comments below.

"It is to be viewed with the text upside down. This piece is about the way I sometimes feel as a object maker, like a dinosaur or just passé. I don't typically make installations or do videos or any of the more avant-garde ways of making art. So perhaps you can see why the quote struck me so. I think most artist worry about this same feeling.

I wrote the text on the paper several weeks before painting the partial landscape. I wasn't immediately sure what if any thing should accompany the text. When I decided upon the landscape it made perfect sense to me because it is a very traditional thing to paint and also I could manipulate it to give a sense of mood.

I think the shape gives the piece a sense of being a relic as well a a certain ephemeral quality. I feel by showing the text inverted you can have your mind focus on the landscape more independently than if the text was right side up. by doing so the mood of the landscape and shape of the piece can strike you more easily than if your gaze was fixed on the quotation. which I believe would be hard to escape since it is such a strong narrative." - PJ Zimmerlink

Pi Pie picture by Paul Smith. Some rights reserved.

Happy Pi Day (3.14)!

I've just heard some fun music for the holiday; check out this story for Morning Edition: “How to Transform the Number Pi into a Song”

It now joins the poem “Poe, E. Near a Raven” by Mike Keith on my (short) list of favorite pi-inspired works.

The cheery little piece in the NPR story is by Michael John Blake. Since I first heard it this morning, his YouTube video "What Pi Sounds Like" has been taken down due to a copyright claim by composer Lars Erikson, who previously had written a Pi Symphony:

Even though they use the same idea of using the digits of Pi to notes in a chromatic major scale, it seems that the results are different enough to legally co-exist. I am not a lawyer, and I suppose a melody is a melody, whether it's based on the digits of a mathematical constant or stumbled upon through random inspiration or other processes, but I really like Blake's piece.

What do you think of the copyright issue? Do you know any other neat artistic interpretations of Pi, in classical music, or elsewhere?  

It seems that musicians have tended more towards Phi, the number at the heart of the golden ratio. Which is cool, and seems to involve fewer copyright issues, but it doesn’t sound as tasty…unless we’re talking about phi-lo (phyllo? I'm not even sure if it's pronounced the same way, and if I have to explain the pun, it’s probably not a very good one). 

Maybe I’ll just stick with pie for food and Phi for music.

Related links: 

* Pi Day
* “How to Transform the Number Pi into a Song” [NPR]
* Celebrating the Pies of March [NPR]
* Pi Symphony
* “Poe, E. Near a Raven” by Mike Keith
* Pi Approximation Day [Dinosaur Comics]