A journey
POSTED IN Shameless Self Promotion 26.01.2010
A few years back, 4 years or so, a baritone singer here in Iceland, Michael John Clarke, asked me if I’d be interested in doing a photographical journey of Schubert’s Winterreise; the tone poem by Schubert and Müller, about the Winter Journey of a young man, to pair it with his musical expression with the accompaniment of the pianist Richard Simm.
To me, it sounded as a very challenging project; challenging for me as a photographer and as a musician. I had only been an amateur photographer for a short time.
From birth I’ve been brought up as a musician, I’ve been taught to listen to music, to read it, to be able to feel and see it’s nuances in a manuscript, to play it, to breathe it.
Born and raised as one, I work as a professional musician, I have been a music teacher for over 20 years today. And I’ve loved ever single minute.
Photography only came as a hobby to me a couple of years ago; the chance to do something different, something for myself, something to enhance what I would ” see” or “hear” in all the music in the world.
A few months into my fling with photography; the singer Mr. Clarke contacted me, after seeing my work online, I had been getting a good exposure on Flickr for a few months then. All throughout my time of photographing, I’ve done it the same way I am doing music, or the same way I was taught doing music. With a passion.
-Put everything inside you into it, and then some.
This project , of the Winterreise, proved to be a big challenge to me;
to let the music and its chords and lines, it’s feeling and sounds take the same level as the text;
for me to see if I could project both the music and words into one image per song, taking into account both the musical and poetic elements.
At first the thought of it was easy; but, thinking further and the more I read of the lyrics to the song cycle, the more I dove into the music itself and tried to link the two; the more I saw of images.
This would prove to be a very difficult task, to take the words by Müller and mix it up with Schubert’s music and come out with one photographic image representing the one song.
-I read the lyrics over and over. I started dreaming the lyrics.
Over and over, I listened to the music, I read the music manuscripts.
I even drove to the shop with Der Leiermann sounding from the speakers, I whistled Gute Nacht on the way to work in the morning, I recited a line from Das Wirtshaus, as a mantra for a day.
I fell in love with the music.
I fell in love with the words.
I wanted to get this right.
I saw a thousand of images for those songs, I wanted to find just the one that would be right, but would tell you all that was said in the words, all that was said – even in the finest nuances of the music. It was so hard to come up with the one line of poetry that would represent the whole verse out of the 24, and then combining it with music.
You could say, I was walking around as the young person on the Winterjourney for the time I was studying and finding ways to convey the feelings of each poem, finding what to display- how the main character felt in his long journey, on his way during loneliness, despair and unhappiness. Treading each and every insecure step in the world as an adult, with all it’s complicated feelings and emotions.
How he finally finds his place in the end.
I thought so much about the end of this man who traveled through the land of cold, frost, loneliness and despair.
This project, that in the beginning looked as if it would be an ambitious project for a small crowd has now been on show in Iceland, Canada and France -and now this beginning of 2010; in the Sydney Arts Festival, has made me learn so much about Schubert, more than I did learn as a musician by trade during my studies, more than I needed to learn as a lover of music, and more than enough as a person, to enjoy Schubert’s and Muller’s emotionally complicated Song Cycle of the Winterreise.
My photographs from this series of songs have been sold in limited edition prints, as well as for commercial use for recordings and publications on the Winterreise, as well as exhibits during a concert performance of the piece around the world with various talented musicians.
I was also asked to do a file on my photographic work of the Winterreise for the Schubert Society in USA, to have on file all art related material, related to Schubert´s work.
I am grateful that the Schubert Society does archive all material related to the composer.
The Winterreise taught me so many things, technically, disciplinary and artistically; as a musician and as a photographer.
To be able to listen to Schubert’s music and link what you see/hear/feel, to what the composer is conveying to you through the centuries;
-it can not be seen or felt physically.
Only your heart can agree or disagree.
Entrancing set, and interesting background. It really gets to the next level when you set yourself such a task, trying to illustrate a work from a completely different medium – and also so high profile. Considerably more challenging – and I would imagine, rewarding – than a Flickr stream.
I’m hardly qualified to comment, as I know nothing about Schubert or his music, but your visual interpretation makes me want to find out more.
Nice to see you back in the virtual world, too
David