A recent work by American composer George Crumb (1919-2022) looked at 10 famous paintings dating from 1872 to 1990. Metamorphoses (Book I), subtitled Ten Fantasy-Pieces (after celebrated paintings), was composed between 2015 and 2017 for amplified piano. Crumb himself pointed

Creations Inspired by Characters in Wagner’s Siegfied, Tristan und Isolde and Ring Cycle For the artists and followers of Decadence in late–19th century London, Richard Wagner (1813-1883) was their composer of choice. The artist Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898) was a devoted

In 1498, in response to the announcement of the end of the world that the European Christian world believed would happen in 1500, the 27-year-old Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) completed his sixteen designs for the Apokalyse (Apocalypse). Dürer was born in

Mark-Anthony Turnage: Three screaming popes British artist Francis Bacon (1909-1992) was a figurative painter in terms of starting with a figure. Where he took that figure, into often unsettling portraits, made him one of the giants of contemporary British art.

Erik Satie: Sports et Divertissements Erik Satie‘s piano cycle Sports et divertissements was inspired by twenty drawings by the caricaturist Charles Martin, or perhaps it was the other way around: it was Satie’s ideas for the music that inspired the

Thea Musgrave: The Seasons Inspired by Paintings From the 15th to 20th Century When we think of a musical work called The Seasons, we first think of Vivaldi’s set of violin concertos or Glazunov’s ballet or Tchaikovsky’s cycle for piano,

George Antheil: La femme 100 têtes In 1929, the German/American/French artist Max Ernst (1891-1976) created a new kind of graphic novel. In La femme 100 têtes, he created his collage-novel (as he called it) by cutting up illustrations from 19th-century

The character of the trickster fox is everywhere in folktales from around the world. Sometimes he’s evil, but most often he’s a trickster, known for being cunning, wily, and resourceful. Their first mention comes in the fables of Aesop, in