BOOK RELEASE: "MIRÓ & MUSIC
Auditório de Serralves
22 NOV 2017
Miró & Music by Joan Punyet Miró. This book is a comprehensive analysis of Miró’s relationship to music. It is a journey that covers his early Barcelona days, when music played a central role in his artistic education; to Paris, where he became intimate with some of the leading composers of his day, and finally Palma de Mallorca, where he put together what is undoubtedly a most eclectic record collections. (Published in its entirety for the first time.)
Miró turned his palette to all sorts of musical visions, as his work goes to shows. His musical thirst was unquenchable: classical, avant-garde, ballet, flamenco, contemporary. The entire gamut. In New York it was jazz and gospel, in Barcelona he favored flamenco, and in Paris the rest. His passion knew no boundaries. It includes recordings of the music of insects or birds; African and Asian traditional music; Mozart, Bach and all the classics, romantics, serialists, etc. And his numerous collaborations with the likes of Varèse, Antheil, Stockhausen, Cage and others, as well as his camaraderie with his old Barcelona stalwarts who kept him abreast and supplied of all that was different and original, clearly influenced his art.
It was in Mallorca, upon his return from Paris that he started visiting the cathedral on a daily basis and sat listening to the organ rehearsal for hours. It was at this period that he stated that "I will make my work emerge naturally, like the song of a bird or the Music of Mozart, with no apparent effort, but thought out at length and worked out from within.” His soul had soared to new musical heights.
Joan Punyet Miró has set out to paint a picture of Miró’s love affair with Music. It cannot be called by any other name, even if at times it seemed to play second fiddle to his other muse: poetry. Punyet has culled information on Miró’s friendship with some of the outstanding composers and musicians of his day, including letters, notes, drawings, doodles or record-covers—anything that threw light on this seldom studied side of the Catalan master. Not only has Successió Miró’s archive been turned inside out in this thorough research—some of which appears in print for the first time—, but numerous individuals and institutions—in Spain and abroad—have shared valuable material, both graphic and written, which has contributed to the unique richness of this work.
Miró turned his palette to all sorts of musical visions, as his work goes to shows. His musical thirst was unquenchable: classical, avant-garde, ballet, flamenco, contemporary. The entire gamut. In New York it was jazz and gospel, in Barcelona he favored flamenco, and in Paris the rest. His passion knew no boundaries. It includes recordings of the music of insects or birds; African and Asian traditional music; Mozart, Bach and all the classics, romantics, serialists, etc. And his numerous collaborations with the likes of Varèse, Antheil, Stockhausen, Cage and others, as well as his camaraderie with his old Barcelona stalwarts who kept him abreast and supplied of all that was different and original, clearly influenced his art.
It was in Mallorca, upon his return from Paris that he started visiting the cathedral on a daily basis and sat listening to the organ rehearsal for hours. It was at this period that he stated that "I will make my work emerge naturally, like the song of a bird or the Music of Mozart, with no apparent effort, but thought out at length and worked out from within.” His soul had soared to new musical heights.
Joan Punyet Miró has set out to paint a picture of Miró’s love affair with Music. It cannot be called by any other name, even if at times it seemed to play second fiddle to his other muse: poetry. Punyet has culled information on Miró’s friendship with some of the outstanding composers and musicians of his day, including letters, notes, drawings, doodles or record-covers—anything that threw light on this seldom studied side of the Catalan master. Not only has Successió Miró’s archive been turned inside out in this thorough research—some of which appears in print for the first time—, but numerous individuals and institutions—in Spain and abroad—have shared valuable material, both graphic and written, which has contributed to the unique richness of this work.
