CLASSICAL MUSICIANS AND MUSEUMS

CLASSICAL MUSICIANS AND MUSEUMS 

Ok, lot of you will remember that the word music and museum share the same root from ancient Greek and specifically from the word "Μοῦσαι, Moũsai;Muse". The Muses were goddesses that protected art,dance, poetry and music. According to Hesiod's account they were the nine daughters of Zeuz and Mnemosyne ( the goddess of memory).

The nine muses were the following: Calliope (epic poetry), Clio(history), Euterpe (flutes and lyric poetry), Thalia (comedy and pastoral poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Terpsichore (dance), Erato (love poetry), Polyhymnia(sacred poetry), Urania (astronomy). 

It strikes the reader that amongs muses of arts  there was the muse of astronomy, but this is very normal for the ancient Greek mentality and was quite normal for all the other European cultures and people up to 1600 AC since it was believed that the universe was ruled by musical laws that organized all planets and stars.

Since the knowledge was only common among privileged people it was no wonder that Leonardo da Vinci was not only an engineer but also a painter, a scientist, a poet and a MUSICIAN. He was a musician too. This means that culture was less accessible but cultivate people did make no difference between art and science because both of them needed a great dosis of creativity.

Back to our time, in a classical musician life there is a very close connection between music and museums. Why? It's very simple. Classical musicians are constantly in search of beauty and expression in all they do and they are often intrigued by the fact of finding beauty in other different arts like paintings or history. I believe that history is another kind of objective art ( but this is only my personal opinion). 

During my trips around Europe I love to visit Museums after the concert performance...ok not immediately after, the next day or when we have time. When visiting a place of art I am in search of music under another form, in a visual shape, in a visual picture, under the inspiration of colours or under the history of an object.

Sometimes musicians are able to stay hours in front of a painting. But if you see us staring at a painting, be sure we are not only staring at something. We want to catch the secret of a determined painting or painter. For example...when visiting the National Gallery in London, I was more inspired by Pissarro's Louvre under snow than Van Gogh sunflowers...why?

Because walking through these paintings, I had a look to Pissarro's Louvre under snow and it seemed to me that something inside this painting was alive, was really moving. Then I thought it was nonsense, maybe I was hungry and was about to faint. But the truth was that I was feeling very well. Later back in the hotel I checked on Pissarro and discovered that he was obsessed with painting something which could give the impression of movement and motion in the picture.

You know what Pissarro?! You got it! I know absolutely nothing about you, but I caught your secret!

On the other hand, van Gogh's sunflowers are less beautiful than in any other image across the world, but this is fault of photoshop, which gives you a wrong perception of colours and the National Gallery itself which could highlight a little bit more such a wonderful masterpiece. Anyway, it's not all about this. Van Gogh's sunflowers show a sufference and pain in their distribution of colours that not everybody might like it. Again. For musicians it's very clear that they aren't just sunflowers, they are a medium through which van Gogh got rid of his pain and illness. And this is the first thing a musician perceives and not always is disposed to be affected by.