Scottish Rhapsody
- Artist:
- Type: Drawing
- Medium: Pastel on paper
- Production Date:
- Period:
- 1930s
- Description: These pastels date from McLaren‘s teens, prior to art school. Chalk drawing of Scottish music. From a series of drawings drawn in 1934 in which McLaren attempted to visualize various musical styles including Hungarian folk music, a military march, ‘oriental music by a Turkish orchestra‘ and ‘hot dance music.‘
'I remember hearing Hungarian gypsy music for the first time, which struck me as so strange. It reminded me of waves, water dripping and I was terribly moved and excited.
I‘d lie back on the couch. And as I shut my eyes, I saw the play and dance of forms. Music can do all kinds of things- there‘s a tempo which can be low or fast or can accelerate, decelerate, it can pianissimo or fortissimo and I could visualise the equivalent of these things. Things could skip and leap about joyfully or they could drag themselves tragically around or they could twirl and swirl - do all kinds of thing. There‘s a whole lot of adjectives that you can apply to music and you can apply to movement of shapes and forms in an abstract film. Some of the pieces of music I heard excited me so much I wanted to express them visually'. Norman McLaren did not study the violin for long, but long enough to be able to play in Muir Matheson‘s Gypsy Orchestra. - Digital Copy:A digital copy exists.
- Location: Pathfoot A Corridor
- Related Material: AC/AF/M/6
- Accession Number: 2012.24
- Contact: University of Stirling Art Collection
