Musical Ekphrasis and the Prospects of Intermedial Research

Abstract

Amid the expansion of analytical approaches in modern art history analytics, musicologists areincreasingly turning to the concept of “intermediality”. As distinguished from the concept of“intertextuality” in art history contexts (Aage Hansen-Löve, Ivan Ilyin), “intermediality” characterises an approach to the analysis of different “media” combined in one text. A special case of intermediality is “musical ekphrasis” as developed in the works of Siglind Bruhn. Referring tothe sequence of actions proposed by Bruhn, the relationships between different media in the spaceof one text are systematised on the example of Frises, a musical compositions for violin and electronicsby Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho. The analysis reveals an associative mechanism of a two-stage interaction: from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Chaconne for solo violin (the starting point) to Odilon Redon’s Frises and Maurits Escher’s engravings and further to Baroque era genres (“carillon, passacaglia, ground bass and chaconne,” according to the composer). The key concept is the“frieze” as a pictorial work that has the ability to unfold in time. “Frieze” as a concept (and not a specific work) turns out to be an “umbrella term” for different types of deployment that establishbetween them a plurality of manifestations within a unified conceptual framework.

Keywords: analysis, intermediality, musical ekphrasis, Kaija Saariaho, frieze