Music drawings

This was written in the spring of 1915 and dedicated to Zofia Kochanska, wife of the accomplished violinist Pawel Kochanski. The first part of Mythes was performed by Pawel Kochanski and Szymanowski himself in Kiev on 5th April 1915. 15 years after its composition Szymanowski wrote these words “In Mythes and Concerto Pawelek and I have created a new style, a new expression of violin playing, a truly epoch making thing.” All similar works by other composers, even the most brilliant, were written under the direct influence of Mythes and Concerto or with Pawelek’s direct contribution. The fountain of Arethusa from Greek myth tells the story of the nymph Arethusa turned onto a stream fleeing from Alpheus.

The mood of the piece is achieved not only with a sophisticated and at times extraordinarily complicated harmony but also with a plethora of means of articulation in the violin part, with numerous trills, glissandos combined with tremolos, and flageolets. On top of that there is the characteristic, delicate and light texture, made of static, yet internally shimmering and vibrant sound planes evocative of Impressionistic music.

Sophie's thoughts

We heard this piece for the first time as a family at a concert in 2019 at Marlborough College when Jennifer Pike came to perform with her father. We were all mesmerised and it started Finn (our youngest son) off on a journey into Szymanowski’s works including Métopes.

The drawing

This first drawing of Jennifer is the result of a build up of many felt marks in response to Jennifer's physical movement when expressing phrasing within the music. My pencil was responding to the angle of attack of her bow arm and action of her hands on the strings as she expressed herself. Imagine the drawn marks on the paper representing the notations and notes in the music score.

How do you describe in a drawing a different sense such as the vibration of music in our ear and record it as marks on paper so that by looking later at the recorded marks we can then hear the music in our head? We certainly cannot unless we were there in that moment to experience it first hand! I believe drawing is a truly special activity that unlocks our brain's extended capacity and it is open for anyone to access. Not just those that society likes to label as artists.

To truly get value from looking at the drawings from this concert, throw away any preconceptions of visual representation and realism. Follow the movement of the pencil marks with your eye and translate them as passages of sound. if you were at the concert, half close your eyes and take yourself back to your memory and unlock the moment.

Original drawing available to purchase - Contact Sophie Kverndal

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After finishing the first drawing, it turned out I only had 4 minutes to capture this second quick drawing of Jennifer's face expressed in her deep concentration as she processed towards the end of the piece. The drawing is all about the moment she held before disengaging and returning to the present and leaving the mindful space of performance and mental engagement with the music. The wandering line to the right of her was the expression of that release at the end of her performance and doubled up as a visual description of the violin.

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Concertino by Bruce Montgomery (composed in 1948) to words by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

Sophie's thoughts

The waking world has such clear material presence it is hard to imagine another realm maybe glimpsed in dreams. After the death of a loved one the sharp division between the waking world and the world vaguely remembered becomes more blurred, the bond of love finds an incomprehensible connection and the possibility of reunion becomes more than a leap of faith.

The drawing

It was very brave of my two nephews to stand up and perform in these circumstances. This drawing was captured very fast and at a distance so there was no chance of getting anything like a likeness. It is just a response in the moment to the emotion of the 2 boys singing to their father in front of all his dear friends and family. I just hope it has something that everyone there recognises?

The drawing

This drawing was more of a what I describe as a warm up when I start drawing. It takes one or two drawings to settle your state of mind and relax your mind in to what I call the zone. My wife would probably call it a mindful state. I decided initially to focus on just one of the Exodus choral singers. The movement and expression on her face, especially her mouth as she sang held what needed capturing in the drawing. As my time was limited I just had to hope that the marks joined up to hold an essence of what she, as a singer, was expressing.

Original drawing available to purchase - Contact Sophie Kverndal

Written in 1922, the Mass for double choir was to remain Martin’s only unaccompanied choral work. In the intimacy of its musical language and the deep emotion inherent in every bar, it stands today as one of Martin’s finest creations and one of the greatest a cappella works written this century. It is a sincerely felt and intensely personal work which Martin secreted in a drawer for forty years, releasing it only after much persuasion from Franz Brunnert, director of the Bugenhagen Kantorei of Hamburg, who premiered the Mass in 1963, the year in which it was also first published.

It was Martin’s all-pervasive faith that played a large part in the delayed public airing of an aesthetic work which for him expressed the very essence of Christianity. At the time of the Mass’s premiere he wrote: ‘I did not want it to be performed … I considered it … as being a matter between God and myself. I felt then that an expression of religious feelings should remain secret and removed from public opinion.’

Sophie's thoughts

Simon and I were entranced by this piece of music when we heard it performed in Bristol cathedral by David Bednall’s ‘Bristol University Choir’ of which Thor (our eldest son) was a member. There was a storm raging overhead so the background percussion was thunder in perfect unison, ethereal, unforgettable.

The drawing

This drawing represents a few of the singers peforming in front of me from this choral group. I wanted to capture the youthful clarity of the movement and expression on all their faces and bodies as singing is a very physical practice.

Original drawing available to purchase - Contact Sophie Kverndal

This is an extended solo piano piece composed in 1904. According to Jim Samson (1977), the “central relationship in the work is that between material based on the whole tone scale, the Lydian mode and the diatonic scale, the lydian mode functioning as an effective mediator between the other two.”

Debussy was known for his mastery in making French Impressionism into music. L’isle joyeuse takes up Watteau’s pastoral ideals and gives the genre a modernist twist. We land precariously and then the dancing rhythms carry us onto the island and up to the grove of Venus, where all delights await.

Sophie's thoughts

Debussy has been a long time favourite of mine but Finn’s appreciation of all things Debussy (particularly his piano music) far exceeds my enthusiasm and knowledge. This piece is for him and Simon will remember many school concerts listening to another Debussy piece lovingly tackled.

Responsive gestural drawing

This is a fast loose responsive drawing drawn in a quick gestural way, not being concerned with accuracy but with responding to the feeling of the music. My marks were drawn in time to the music and mimicked the rhythm and tempo of the music. My pencil followed the lightness or heavy pressure of attack of James's hands on the keyboard. It resulted in light floating lines for quiet sequences and dark accents for periods of attack. It was important to capture the position and movement of his body, especially the hunch of his shoulders to express the deep concentration and focus of his performance. I was conscious of the reflection of James's hands on the backboard of the piano. Was this a visible clue towards there being another plane we go to that is reflected in our present day of which we are generally wholly unaware?

Original drawing available to purchase - Contact Sophie Kverndal

This drawing was a slower cumulative build up of marks captured over a longer time. I was particularly drawn to the expression on James's face and his hands on the keyboard. I added pink to draw attention to the expression of movement translating the music from his hands. I was particularly taken with the reflection of his hands in the backboard of the piano. It looked like two players playing simultaneously maybe from another dimension? As an artist I experience having a physical self and a slightly detached mental self directing the moment. The tricky when drawing is knowing when the marks captured on the paper surface say what you are experiencing in the current moment. No more and no less. Its takes bravery to step away and some gut instinct to judge that what is down on the paper says it all.

Original drawing available to purchase - Contact Sophie Kverndal

Here is a closeup of the hands that I was very focused on in the way they moved and translated his expression in to the generation of the sound.

Here is a close up of the more instinctive gestural drawing.

This mélodie is the first in a set of three songs composed between 1870 and 1877. The poem for Après un rêve was loosely adapted from an anonymous Italian text by Romain Bussine. The last verse expresses the harsh reality of inexorable day dawning after a joyful dream of being called to flee with a lover from Earth to the light of the heavens.

In the original key of C minor, often transposed to suit all voices, this eminently romantic piece is characteristic of Fauré’s youthful style, differing substantially from the abstract harmonic ideas of his mature period. The melody unfolds over a thick swathe of regular quavers, its lyricism liberated from this fixed rhythmic base by flowing triplet figures.

Sophie's thoughts

The dream of being re-united somewhere beyond this place. The poignancy of the words needs no explanation.

The drawing

The drawing is my response to focusing on James's hands as he played and how that wove together with Cassandra's singing. Drawing to music in a highly charged room of people wishing to express the shared feeling of loss transported me to a different place, a place that Simon would have recognised as affirming his faith. I will retain that feeling forever and hope you feel it in the drawings. Every drawing I make triggers my visual memory of the time and place. It gets captured like a photographic memory.

Original drawing available to purchase - Contact Sophie Kverndal

Monteverdi was an Italian composer, string player, choirmaster, and priest. A composer of both secular and sacred music, and a pioneer in the development of opera, he is considered a crucial transitional figure between the Renaissance and Baroque periods of music history. The text of this motet, collected and combined from Psalms 95 and 97 (96 and 98) was contributed to the anthology of motets published in 1620 by Monteverdi’s pupil Giulio Cesare Bianchi. Whether consciously or not, Monteverdi reused for the phrase ‘Cantate et exultate’ a musical sequence that he had first used at the end of the madrigal Ecco mormorar l’onde in his Second Book of Madrigals of 1590; this may indicate that the motet was written very much earlier than its date of publication.

Sophie's thoughts

A piece of early music to please Simon and Thor

The drawing

I first drew one of the singers in the group but then I realised that given the time available I needed to create a short hand visual reference for the many singers' vocals. So, on the fly, I decided to draw all their mouths as a short hand. The resulting drawing is a response, in the moment to the performers' expression and my feelings triggered by the performance.

Original drawing available to purchase - Contact Sophie Kverndal

This was one of the first major works to emerge after Rachmaninov had a writing block following the disastrous premiere of his Symphony No.1 in 1897. Completed in November 1901, Rachmaninov regarded the role of the piano in this sonata as not just an accompaniment but equal to the cello. Most of the themes are introduced by the piano, while they are embellished and expanded in the cello’s part.

Unfortunately this piece premiered a month after his mighty second Piano Concerto so that work’s huge success eclipsed this less ambitious, but undoubtedly musically related, chamber piece. Rachmaninov dedicated the sonata to the eminent Russian cellist Anatoliy Brandukov, who gave the first performance in Moscow with the composer himself playing the terrifyingly difficult piano part. Some 14 years older than the composer, Brandukov and Rachmaninov were nevertheless great friends. The cellist was Rachmaninov’s best man at his wedding and the two of them gave numerous concerts together.

Sophie's thoughts

Rachmaninov accompanied Simon and I all our married life (even to the ballet in Rhapsody) and his 2nd Piano Concerto plays on the radio when I am around with persistent synchronicity. The absence of an orchestra in this concert means the 2nd Piano Concerto gives way to this wonderful chamber piece.

The drawing

I sat directly in front of Wallis and I had the length of the movement to capture her and the feel of the music she was communicating to us. I imagined Simon sitting over my shoulder smiling as we all floated away in a moment of peace and calm. Music creates this connection inside us that goes straight to our soul and I harnessed this to guide my drawing. I was barely conscious of the physical act of drawing, I was just responding to Wallis playing.

I asked Wallis afterwards if I had put her off, but she said is was very comforting seeing me with her in the moment. I was deeply immersed in the playing and the drawing process was very emotional and it will remain with me for ever. My sister gifted the drawing to Wallis. Drawing someone is a very personal practice and I like the fact that the drawing will live with her. I am planning to do more drawings with her in public performances.

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I captured multiple positions of her head as it expresses her movement and expression during the performance. Playing the cello is a physical act as well as an intellectual expression. I learnt to play the cello when I was young so have insight in to the practicalities of playing and achieving the high level of performance that Wallis achieves.

Her is another view of the drawing cropping it in a different way to show the marks captured.