Debussy & Matisse: Creating New Colors

Part of TŌN’s Sight & Sound series

In the popular series Sight & Sound, conductor and music historian Leon Botstein explores the parallels between orchestral music and the visual arts. A discussion is accompanied by on-screen artworks and musical excerpts performed by The Orchestra Now, followed by a full performance and audience Q&A.

Henri Matisse helped to revolutionize the visual arts in the first decades of the 20th century with daring and energetic experiments in a radiant, technicolor style of art that changed the course of French painting. In the same era, his compatriot Claude Debussy was rejecting classical German musical tradition, developing his own style of harmony and orchestral coloring that would strongly influence a wide range of composers for years to come. His vividly expressive Images for orchestra, which evoke English, Spanish, and French cultures, exemplify the composer’s explorations in color and texture.