William Alwyn: Derby Day Commissioned by the BBC to replace a performance of his Second Piano Concerto, British composer William Alwyn wrote a lively overture that was only after the fact linked to a work of art. Alwyn agreed that

Thea Musgrave: Turbulent Landscapes In an extraordinary work that is not only based on a number of paintings by JMW Turner (1775–1851) but also uses a particular thematic point to connect them, Scottish composer Thea Musgrave (b. 1928) creates a

In 1903, the Austrian painter and illustrator Gustav Klimt paid a visit to Ravenna, the capital of Byzantine Italy in the 6th century. The proclaimed goal of this visit was to broaden his range of artistic historical references by closely

Lithuanian composer Mikolajus Kosntantinas Čiurlionis (1875-1911) was the son of an organist and started the musical school of Polish Prince Michał Ogiński in Plungė before attending the Warsaw Music Institute at age 19. He started as a piano student, then

The household is in an uproar – the cat is at the meat, a bottle is broken on the floor, a heavy book is being trodden on, the backgammon board is overturned, a pocket watch lies open, and the lute

Kaija Saariaho: Orion – I. Memento mori A painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art was the unexpected inspiration for composer Kaija Saariaho’s orchestral work Orion. Orion was the giant hunter in Greek mythology. A son of Poseidon, he was

Peter Maxwell Davies: 5 Klee Pictures After his graduation from Manchester, British composer Peter Maxwell Davies’ first position was with the Cirencester Grammar School. In his three years there, he wrote a number of works for their orchestra, the first

Sean Shepherd: Express Abstractionism In the 20th century, there was a deliberate effort in art to get away from the literal, the real, and the representative and into the realms of the mind. Abstract Expressionism was just one of those