Educational Media Reviews Online

This video is the third of a seven-volume series introducing the music of the twentieth century to the public. It deals with color in music, what that means, and how it is accomplished by various composers and compositions. While Volume 1 of this series had scenes of running water consistently flashing over the screen, Volume 3 often shows scenes of horses running through water and fields full of sunshine and flowers. Simon Rattle, conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, begins with a discussion and selected sections of Debussy and his Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun. The link of impressionistic art with Debussy's compositional style of strings and woodwinds, to the exclusion of brass and percussion, illustrates how color can be a form in itself.

Rattle then moves through a detailed discussion and selected performance of a number of composers and compositions, in which color is used as a form. They include Igor Stravinsky's Firebird (1910); Ravel's Daphnis and Chloe (1912); Debussy's Jeux (1913); Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra, movement #3 (Farben)(1909); Boulez's Notationes for Piano (piano version 1938, orchestral version 1978); Messiaen's Synethesia and Et expecto resurrectionem mortuorum (1963); and Toru Takemitsu's Dream Window (1988). Throughout each of these selections, Rattle explains how the composer experimented with color, such as Eastern instruments like gongs or metal percussion, or widely-spaced or flowing chordal structures. The discussion of Messiaen's compositional style was especially informative, as he described how he heard color instead of music when he composed. For instance, he used actual bird songs in his music. Once when describing a piece of music, he said, "I want it played a little more greeny-orange." The last part includes an interview with Toru Takemitsu, and when his "Dream Window" is performed, the video incorporates the effect of moving through an art gallery, with windows of music, art, nature scenes, the orchestra playing, as if the listener is walking and viewing artwork while the composition is playing.

As in Volume 1, I was impressed with the "conducted tour" approach used by Rattle. I feel, as a music teacher and musicologist, that the best way to experience and learn about music is to listen to music. Too often, music history is rendered boring or too sophisticated to the world through the use of words or lectures, when the real power of music is the music itself. Rattle presents these pieces to the viewer as dynamic, powerful expressions of the human imagination, only understandable through listening and experiencing. This series is a wonderful compilation of the music of the 20th century, and Volume 3, Color, is both an aural and a visual experience of truly magnificent proportions.