AMAM, Conservatory mesh

'Images and Sound' exhibit combines arts

The Conservatory of Music and the Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) are teaming up again for "Images and Sound: Variations/Modulations," an interdisciplinary exhibit combining music and visual art. The theme of this installment was inspired by the AMAM's current exhibition, Quality and Techniques in Prints, which opened Oct. 4.

The exhibit brings together a collection of prints drawn from both Western and Asian sources, examining different techniques of printmaking, transformations of themes made over time, and the print as an art form. Featured artists include Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn and James McNeill Whistler.

This survey of prints allows for a comparative study of the medium, which is the objective for the "Images and Sound" concert. The exhibit couples the display with selections of musical works chosen to show variations when compared.

"Although the connection between the two art forms is fairly loose, they address common issues," said Leslie Miller, Assistant Director of AMAM. Nineteenth-Century Adaptations of Mozart's Piano Concertos, presented by Claudia McDonald, Associate Professor of Musicology, explores the consequences of the contemporary approach to works of yesterday. These concertos successfully show modifications made to repertory standards to meet the demands of the early 19th-century.

"I had been planning to do Liszt's arrangement of Schubert's Winter's Journey for a while - especially since 1997 is a bicentennial Schubert year," said Peter Takacs, Professor of Pianoforte.

"What Liszt does is take the piece from its original medium, bass-baritone, to piano alone," Takacs said. "He decides which hand plays the melody and which plays the accompaniment. The piece becomes something different from its starting point. It changes into a large romantic piano piece, losing its intimacy."

Perceiving, studying and understanding this change is what "Images and Sounds" strives for.

The performance takes place Sunday, 2-4 p.m. in Allen Memorial Building Fisher Hall.