Music and Modern Art adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the relationship between these two fields of creative endeavor.

Looking and Listening: Conversations between Modern Art and Music invites the art and music lover to place these two realms of creative endeavor into an open dialog. Although the worlds of music and visual art often seem to take separate paths, they are usually parallel. Conductor and art connoisseur Brenda Leach takes unique pairings of well-known visual art works and musical compositions from the twentieth century to identify the shared sources of inspiration, as well as similarities in theme, style, and technique, to explore the historical and cultural influences on the great artists and composers in the twentieth century. Looking and Listening asks and answers: What does jazz have in common with paintings by Stuart Davis and Piet Mondrian? How did Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue affect the work of artist Arthur Dove? How did painter Georgia O’Keeffe and composer Aaron Copland capture the spirit of a youthful America entering the twentieth century? What did Kandinsky and Schoenberg share in their artistic visions? Leach takes readers on a whirlwind tour of the lives of these artists, surveying many of the key movements in the twentieth century by comparing representative works from the modern masters of the visual arts and music. Leach’s refreshing and innovation approach will interest those passionate about twentieth-century art and music and is ideal for any student or instructor, museum docent, or music programmer seeking to draw the lines of connection between these two art forms.

Painters and musicians have always found inspiration by sharing ideas from both disciplines. How this relationship developed from Philipp Otto Runge's "compositions" in painting to Jean Tinguely's and Niki de Saint Phalle's musical sculptures is the focus of this illustrated volume. Carefully selected images and quotations from composers and artists are blended into a study useful to scholars of art history and music, and fascinating to the general reader.

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Music and Modern Art adopts an interdisciplinary approach to the relationship between these two fields of creative endeavor.

Composers and artists have always borrowed from each other. Peter Vergo, for the first time, offers an in-depth study of how and why, in the modernist era, music and painting became intertwined. Artist-composer relationships examined include Debussy's interest in Whistler, Tuner, and Monet, Franz Liszt's fascination with Raphael and Michelangelo, Kandinsky with Schoenberg and Paul Klee's influence from Polyphonic music. How artists attempted to translate musical rhythms, and structures into painting and how musicians developed visual themes, all within the backdrop to modernism, as time of huge change in freedoms, industry, expression, ideological frameworks, and artistic practice.

Making Music for Modern Dance traces the collaborative approaches, working procedures, and aesthetic views of the artists who forged a new and distinctly American art form during the first half of the 20th century. The book offers riveting first-hand accounts from innovative artists in the throes of their creative careers and provides a cross-section of the challenges faced by modern choreographers and composers in America. These articles are complemented by excerpts from astute observers of the music and dance scene as well as by retrospective evaluations of past collaborative practices. Beginning with the careers of pioneers Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis, and Ted Shawn, and continuing through the avant-garde work of John Cage for Merce Cunningham, the book offers insights into the development of modern dance in relation to its music. Editor Katherine Teck's introductions and afterword offer historical context and tie the artists' essays in with collaborative practices in our own time. The substantive notes suggest further materials of interest to students, practicing dance artists and musicians, dance and music history scholars, and to all who appreciate dance.