Whistler's Mother - in Music

In Music

Whistler and particularly this painting had a profound effect on Claude Debussy, a contemporary French composer. In 1894, he wrote to violinist Eugène Ysaÿe describing his Nocturnes as "an experiment in the different combinations that can be obtained from one color - what a study in grey would be in painting." Although there is speculation on what he meant by musical 'color', be it orchestration or harmonic, one can observe 'shades' of a particular sound quality in his music.

Read more about this topic:  Whistler's Mother

Famous quotes containing the word music:

    The average educated man in America has about as much knowledge of what a political idea is as he has of the principles of counterpoint. Each is a thing used in politics or music which those fellows who practise politics or music manipulate somehow. Show him one and he will deny that it is politics at all. It must be corrupt or he will not recognize it. He has only seen dried figs. He has only thought dried thoughts. A live thought or a real idea is against the rules of his mind.
    John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)

    Yes; as the music changes,
    Like a prismatic glass,
    It takes the light and ranges
    Through all the moods that pass;
    Alfred Noyes (1880–1958)