“Six Pictures for Piano” – Arno Babajanian
by richibi
“Poèmes barbares“ (1896)
_______
if you thought that Arno Babajanian was
done with synesthetic investigations,
seeing sounds, hearing colours, here’s
his “Six Pictures for Piano“, which he
plays, all of them, himself
can a piano paint, take pictures
you tell me
something else interesting is happening
here, the six are individual pieces despite
being part of a common whole, as the title
suggests
this is the opposite of trying to integrate
movements to a continuous and unfolding
conception, something Beethoven, for
instance, pursued, indeed ardently, in his
own sublime music
dissociation seems a context, a XXth-,
a XXlst-Century, context, in our presently
more polarized world, according to, of
course, Babajanian
what might hold us together then
maybe music
incidentally, the movements to the
“Six Pictures“ here are
1 – Improvisation
2 – Folk Song
3 – Toccatine (a little toccata)
4 – Intermezzo
5 – Choral
6 – Sasoun Dance (don’t ask),
should you not be able to read Russian
note, none of these themes are
photographic
don’t either miss Babajanian‘s
“Sonata for Violin and Piano“
as played by, here again,
himself, it’s rapturous
Richard
psst: see Gauguin above paint poems
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