Peter Maxwell Davies: Musicalising Klee
Following my article about Paul Klee and Harmony, I want to invite the reader to contemplate the idea of intermedial exploration further by examining an example of the translation of music and art in reverse. From January 1959, the composer Peter Maxwell Davies (1934-2016) became a music master at Cirencester Grammar School for three years. He composed Five Klee Pictures (1959) for their orchestra during this time. He encouraged the children to compose music, which was unconventional, stating that “it became clear to me that, unless they are blocked by bad teaching, or have special problems, nearly all children can improvise and compose music competently, in groups and individually, given the minimum of opportunity.” One can compare his drive as a mentor to encourage the development of his creative field through teaching exploratory principles, to that of Paul Klee at the Bauhaus, promoting free, individual thinking. Indeed, at the Bauhaus, some classes involved exercises drawing simultaneously and instinctively with both hands to prepare the mind through unconventional methods.
Paul Klee, Ein Kreuzfahrer, (1929), watercolour and ink.
The first movement, ‘A Crusader’ is inspired by Paul Klee’s Ein Kreuzfahrer (Crusader) (1929). It can be understood as a ‘constructivist march’, compositionally divided into groups of twelve. In each phrase, twelve percussion beats sound, with an alternating orchestral chord responding in similarly. The structure is modern and surprising, with atonality and unpredictability in its harmonies. This innovative style is reflected by Klee’s unconventional composition, with the abstracted figure being layered in watercolour washes with the landscape. Perhaps the interplay of the landscape mirrors the interplay of the percussion and orchestra in its march.
Paul Klee, Twittering Machine, 1922, oil transfer with watercolour and ink.
The third movement embodies Klee's Twittering Machine (1922). Davies' 'Twittering Machine,' is upheld by a repetition of tritones a minor third apart, creating a diminished-seventh chord. An ostinato is repeated fourteen times (a melodic pattern being reintroduced in different varied pitches). However, this stability is challenged by the wind and percussion section, which have improvisatory-styled parts, stimulating a sense of organic spontaneity. The wind and strings play faster and faster to create a climax. One might compare this to the state of the birds in Klee's painting, connected to a revolving arm, which Davies understood as progressively increasing in speed. This is interesting since he recognised an element of inherent movement and temporality within the painting's two-dimensional surface, just as Klee aimed to achieve.
In Davies' Five Klee Pictures, he used visual stimuli as a vehicle to generate analogies of narratives and imagery in his music. References are made in various ways, such as rhymical structure, different combinations of instruments, dynamics, tonality, melody, and harmony. These are all things that the artists of the main body of the dissertation used to translate music into visual media. Klee's painting method is one with more 'implicit references' of line, form, and colour to their representative musical features rather than just a general mood or ‘musicality’. The effect sparks the imagination, inviting the listener to find the correlations between the music and the artwork. These pieces of music demonstrate the power of intermedial thinking and the potential possibilities of fluidly approaching all creative arts. Previously perceived limitations, such as differences in dimensions, or space and time, do not have to hinder creative transpositional processes. Indeed, these 'weaknesses' which make perfectly direct imitations impossible, result in outcomes which are inherently individual and significant creations in their own right.
Bibliography:
Buja, Maureen, ‘Arts Musicians and Artists: Peter Maxwell Davies and Paul Klee’, Interlude, 10/06/2022, https://interlude.hk/musicians-and-artists-peter-maxwell-davies-5-klee-pictures-inspired-by-paul-klee/.
Düchting, Hajo, Paul Klee, Painting Music, Munich: Prestel Publishing, 2012, p.39.
Jones, Nicholas; McGregor, Richard, The Music of Peter Maxwell Davies, Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2020, p.25.
