Music, with its rich palette of colors, clear composition and abstract form, is like a canvas waiting for the artist’s brush to translate vision into substance. It is a totally malleable medium that seems tangible, as if waiting for a sculptor’s hands to give it shape. Art, nature, architecture and even ordinary everyday things are composed of many tones. And like music, each has its own rhythm and theme. They give the observer the ability to step across the threshold of reality and enter a subtle world of ideas accompanied by the tones of people’s voices and musical instruments.
Those who with their music and art evoke these transcendent thoughts within us, two of whom were invited to today’s private gathering at the Havelka Gallery, are the American composer Leo Kraft and the glass-making designer and artist Anna Matoušková. The exhibit is entitled, “Tonality and Substance” and is the first in a row of projects called Places which will be exhibited next year in the Library of the Queens College Art Center and at the Chappell Gallery in New York.
The word “Places” in this context is not meant strictly geographically. It merely represents the artists’ homage to places of significance to them. These are personal places, which we all consider special and sacred. They can be places where we’ve met friends, or neighborhood places, or foreign places. From these experiences we are willing to take risks, to create and to love.
In the introduction to his recording called Places, Leo Kraft states, “There are places that mean a lot to me; that inspire me more than do others in the outside world—nature and all cities with their interesting architecture. Each place acts as an inspiration so that I’m able to compose music using different instruments. That is the stimulant for me.” His private Venice, which he set to music in the Reflections of Venice, is both lyrical and as elusive as a shadow. His Cape Cod Sketches flute concert sounds like a stirring rhythmic play of wind and ocean waves; in his Washington Square, the peculiar beat, like snatches of dialogue, evokes a morning mist. In this composition one can almost glimpse the color of the music, feel the rhythm, see the different mix of city residents, and perhaps hear a jazz band playing somewhere around the corner.
Other Kraft compositions also invoke the image of paintings: Springtime at the Harbor; Hudson Valley; Bridges of the Pacific; and A Garden of Memories. However, this is music that really needs to be more than simply listened to----it requires a certain musical background and experience in order to recognize techniques and forms that were created by the great composers of counterpoint such as canons, fugues, etc. Yet now it is imbued with “new wave” techniques that avant-garde musicians brought on the scene after the 1950s. Our seventy-five year old composer, teacher, musical theorist and author of music books, was inspired by them and began writing modern music as well. Since the end of the 60s, his music has moved away from traditional diatonics and leans toward free tonal interpretation, dodecaphonics, chromatics and atonality, and experimentation with electronic music. “It was an entry into a new world,” he said. Experimentation is necessary in this era of creative composing. Over the past few years Kraft has refined and simplified his music, which has continued to grow stronger. It opens up a vision of the fullness of life and luxuriates in joyful feelings about the beauty in the world.
Leo Kraft and Anna Matouskova have shared a well-respected friendship over many years. They have a mutual admiration of each other’s work, especially those similar subjects that each worked on before they knew each other. “There are musical themes that have inspired me. Just like a composer, I use similar creative techniques in my paintings,” stated Anna. “When I heard Leo’s music, I realized how carefully thought out it was. It seemed to arise from the need to express what is important to him, to select themes about which he feels strongly about. So I began to follow his music and intentionally applied its themes to my work. I’m impressed that he has returned to an older music format, that his compositions are based on 16th century poets and composers. His work is devoted to specific places and people that he likes. He knows the European musical milieu very well; and in terms of expressing European culture, he accomplished more in America than anywhere else. Thanks to him, Europe is not an unfamiliar world to Americans. In 2004 I invited him to an exhibit in the Carolinas. I was surprised how well he understood my glass sculptures, how he described their inner light, their shape and even their rhythm.”
Anna’s paintings, inspired by music that you now see here, are but a small example of what will be exhibited in New York. The Die Drei Pintos painting is based on the 1888 comic three act opera of the same name by Von Weber. Watermarks were inspired by Leo’s music. In 2001 the Albany Records studio recorded his A Garden of Memories for the harpsichord. Anna mentions it as if it were an intimate and familiar piece, yet the painting exhibited here of her “White” garden is a variation of her 1995 A Garden at Night. It is similar to the other two versions illustrating how the artist develops and modifies her theme by various degrees over time. She works with an artistic approach in which her paintings are conceived through formal relationship of color and detail. The overall theme of her paintings and sculptures may not immediately be seen when viewed individually. That’s true even of her small glass sculptures that you see here. The grouping of these pieces are part of an exhibit entitled Numbers and Letters on which she has been working since 1990. Unfortunately this cannot be seen in its entirety here due to the small exhibit space; in addition, other than these two pieces, the rest are part of a traveling exhibit that has not ended yet. But this is an opportunity to see the pieces as they originated and eventually connected to one another.
And one more thing connects our two artistes---an unexpected shared outlook on abstract art. Leo Kraft is a bit skeptical about it and doesn’t believe in it. Anns Matouškova also doesn’t work with geometric abstracts. So there we have another thematic connection between art and music.
Thank you for your consideration.