Konrad and Alexandra (PDF) - Rolf Gross

colors and forms which I see when I hear music. I fear only I will never hear the music in a painting, but perhaps you canhelp me."He held up the disc. "Thank God, modern technology came to my rescue in form of phonograph discs, which permit meto hear the piece of music again and again during my work."He carefully placed the disc on the phonograph, cranked the machine, and very delicately lowered the needle into thegroove.A crackling noise came from the speaker funnel and then suddenly an instrument with a brassy, crowing sound rose,described a large arc, screeched to a high register only to fall back to a melody in the lowest bass. A piano with a strangesyncopated rhythm hacked the melody to pieces. Drums and cymbals took over the beat. The brass instrument wentsilent for a stretch leaving the drummer and the piano in a frenzy of rhythmic figures. The drummer in an attack of wildmadness picked up the melody.Impossible. A drum making music? With great virtuosity the drummer performed a solo ending in a cadence of rhythmicnoise until the brass burst in again, crowing with full force for a few bars, sweeping up the other instruments—and alwaysthis relentless, driving, swinging, syncopated, overheated beat.Claudia and Clara sat shocked in stony silence. Alexandra fought against a flood of vivid colors, spirals, blobs pulsatingwith the rhythm, they attacked her whole body. She focused on the painting, and its lines and blotches began to dance,shamelessly. An image of Konrad in front of the Gauguin paintings at Becky’s house passed before Alexandra’s mind.The onslaught of this music was many times more "obscene" than the Gauguins, a mixture of sexual arousal, dancerhythms, and overheated colors.Kandinsky watched silently."What is this music?" asked Claudia, wide-eyed."Negermusik, Negro music. A friend brought me these recordings from America. The Negroes use this kind ofspontaneously improvised music at weddings, dances, and funerals. To their ears it is highly spiritual.""And what is that brassy instrument? I have never heard a sound like that.""It is a saxophone, a reed instrument."Alexandra was still trying to calm her emotions. Her mind held an image that was still gyrating and pulsing as she lookedat Kandinsky’s canvas."And Alexandra, did you see this music?""I have not recovered from it yet, your whole canvas is dancing."Kandinsky beamed. "This music is so much more spiritual and passionate than Schönberg or Webern. Maybe one day Iwill paint their dry, minimal compositions. For the time being this Negro music has me off my feet. I call my paintingKomposition VII, because I recomposed this music on canvas. I am so pleased that you see it, none of my acquaintancesand critics seem to able to do that."He waved his arms. "Rarely have I worked so hard as for Komposition VII. I have yet to exhaust what I hear in this piece.You know, this music is not ‘composed,’ the musicians cannot even read notes, they play spontaneously and intuitively.Is this drummer not fabulous?"Kandinsky got up and arranged five large canvasses next to each other along the wall. Expectantly he stood aside, lefthand on the last painting, his right in his vest in the Napoleonesque stance Alexandra remembered so well. The tea inthe suddenly absurdly delicate Meissen service was getting cold, the torte was untouched.He swept his hand over the paintings. "These are all different aspects of the piece I played for you. Can you see it?"Clara spoke up. "I have seen some of your earlier ‘abstracts’ and came away with the impression that they were paintedentirely at random, random lines, random colors. To my amazement I now see that you planned every spot, every color,and every form carefully. Some repeat themselves from painting to painting, some are added, others have been left out."She got up and pointed at the features she meant.A painful smile on his face Kandinsky admitted. "Unfortunately, you are correct, these paintings are carefully planned. Ihave to use my head, trying this, trying that, changing a shape or a color to compose what I want. I paint with my intellectinstead of my emotions or my subconscious as these musicians seem to be able to do."Clara shook her head. "These pieces are an impressive achievement in exploring a new way of painting. The time andlabor you must have spent in painting these large canvasses!"Kandinsky took his right hand out of his jacket and made a dismissive gesture. "Oh, once I see what I want, the processis quite fast. I finished these five variations of Komposition VII in less than three weeks."Clara asked whether he would show them selected examples of the paintings that preceded Komposition VII."Let me first show you the last version of Komposition VII. It hangs in the next room, a canvas of two by three meters, toobig to carry around."He had turned the warm, occasionally hot colors of the earlier paintings into light, cool greens and blues. A seeminglyinextricable maze of delicately interwoven forms covered the center of the painting. Despite its size it appeared lighter,more spacious. The room was too small to see the painting from an appropriate distance.Kandinsky took them through the house. He showed them a selection of Impressionen painted between 1911 and 1912.188