Reciprocal Interpretations of Music and Painting

In this paper, I explore ways in which three compositions—Gunther Schuller’s Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee (1959), Peter Maxwell Davies’s Five Klee Pictures (1959/1976), and Tan Dun’s Death and Fire (1992)—lead a listener-observer to understand Paul Klee’s painting Die Zwitschermachine [The Twittering Machine] (1922) not only as influencing music composition but as one whose reception is influenced by composition as interpretation. I rely on concepts that I term descriptive or contextual representation to provide the framework for explaining such reciprocal relations between music and painting. By providing a unique lens through which to view the painting, each piece participates in generating a new twittering machine, so that the analyses uncover three different Zwitschermaschinen . Considered together with the painting, the three compositions take part in creating three distinct virtual multimedia works, each consisting of a combination of the painting with the music. Observers of Klee’s canvas, empowered with the musical thought of the three composers, may apperceive the painting anew through a multitextual listening activity that involves descriptive and contextual representation.