Inspirations Behind Dan Welcher’s String Quartet No. 3, “Cassatt” American painter and printmaker Mary Cassatt (1844–1926) was born outside Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but made her career in France and was one of the few women in the Impressionist circle, joined by

Kandinsky is well-known for often being credited as one of the pioneers of abstraction in Western art. A late starter in the world of painting — he began his studies at the age of thirty, he was as much a

Inspirations Behind Edward Gregson’s Le Jardin à Giverny In 1964, while a student at the Royal Academy of Music, British composer Edward Gregson composed a Romance for clarinet and piano, written for Robert Hill, then a fellow-student and later principal

Inspirations Behind Hans Werner Henze’s Los caprichos Francisco Goya’s disturbing vision of contemporary and supernatural society, Los Caprichos (The Caprices) are a set of 80 aquatints and etchings produced by the artist between 1797 and 1798 and published as a

Adam Schoenberg’s Finding Rothko Inspired by Mark Rothko’s color-field paintings Faced with a commission by the IRIS orchestra, American composer Adam Schoenberg (b. 1980) sought inspiration in the museums of Manhattan. He started with the Museum of Modern Art and

Adam Schoenberg’s Picture Studies In a modern version of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, where he walks around an exhibition of his friend Viktor Hartmann’s paintings, American composer Adam Schoenberg (b. 1980) created his own tour around the Nelson-Atkins Museum

Sergey Akhunov’s Jazz Inspired by Henri Matisse In 1941, Henri Matisse (1869–1954) had abdominal surgery and afterwards was confined to a bed or a chair. With his limited mobility, painting and sculpting were out of the question; however, he still

Musical Interpretations of Henri Matisse’s La Tristesse du roi When we think of self-portraits, we think of images of the artist at work, canvas in front of him, brushes in hand, done at a strange angle so the artist could