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Pigments musicals
The new digital project that we are launching this year is called Pigments musicals (#pigmentsmusicals), with it we will have fun every Friday until the summer, in search of the colors of organology and music. The cover you see was a find we made in the workshop with the Collections team, a set of wood samples (a micro xyloteca) and samples of very different colored varnishes.
We have prepared a selection of resources on both varnish and music in colors or synaesthesia, wich can be checked here.
The musical theorist and mathematician Athanasius Kircher affirmed in the 17th century that every musical sound has an objective correspondence with a color. From the 18th century to the 20th, he experimented with adapting various keyboard instruments so that when he pressed a key, in addition to producing a sound, he raised a colored ribbon or glass through which light was projected onto a screen . Several modern composers, in particular Schoenberg, Korsakóv, Sibelius or Scriabin, were attracted to the idea and produced examples of color music.
We currently have a magnificent example of synaesthesia thanks to Neil Harbisson, who translates everything he sees into sounds thanks to an antenna installed in his head. You can read his biography here.
Over the next few weeks we'll be looking for color-related music, there's a lot of it, starting with this: An der schönen blauen Donau by Strauss in 1887, En blanc et noir by Debussy in 1915, a suite for two pianos, it seems inspired by Velázquez, Bliss and A Color Symphony in 1921 or Gershwin's Rhapsodie in blue in 1924
So, for each color we publish, we'll ask you to suggest the music that will make up a collaborative playlist. Will you join us on this new journey?
You can follow him on the following networks:
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