Visual Music Archive

close Work Detail

 

J. S. Bach: Fantasy in G minor 

(1965) 

by Jan Švankmaker, his second short, is as close as he has come to a musical testimony. Less conventional filmic homage than an act of communion between sound and image.

As a lonesome organist unfolds Bach's composition from a derelict loft, Jan Švankmaker lets loose his own fantasia of quasi-animate architectural motifs: bars, bannisters, gates and locks. Perforations blister open in solid walls; doors swing open into darkness, further empty rooms; the film thrums with the counterpointed ideas of passageway and its impediment, spiritual mobility and the material weight of the world.

 

Source: Nick Bradshaw

 

 

Jan Švankmaker’s second film, entitled Johann Sebastian Bach: Fantasy in G minor, is a stylish, black and white film which shows a man playing the titular track by Johann Sebastian Bach. As he does, everything around him changes. Cracks open up in walls before closing again, doors open and shut, and off images intertwine with each other. The film, at around ten minutes, is the most visually arresting film I’ve seen from Švankmajer so far, even if it is a little different from the usual vivid, odd, and off-kilter style that I’ve become accustomed to. Shot in beautiful, if slightly sinister, black and white with film noir sensibilities (even if the plot – if there is a plot – is so not noir, the style and use of long, drawn out shadows in the first segment as the man stalks towards his piano definitely is). The surrealism sequences, where things around the player begin to change, are equally as arresting. It’s wonderful to watch, and almost entrancing. For ten minutes, my eyes were stuck to the screen. Although little to nothing makes sense at first look, Švankmajer creates a beautiful and hypnotic ten minutes of cinema that prods at the brain whilst tugging at the senses.

 

Source: The Complete Jan Švankmajer

 

 

J. S. Bach: Fantasy in G minor, johann sebastian bach, partitur, Film

Reading

Notation. Calculation and Form in the Arts (2008) is a comprehensive catalogue (in German) edited by Dieter Appelt, Hubertus von Amelunxen and Peter Weibel which accompanied an exhibition of the same name at the Academy of the Arts, Berlin and the ZKM | Karlsruhe. (ZKM)

Film as Film: Formal Experiment in Film 1910-1975 (1979) is a catalogue of an exhibition held at the Hayward Gallery in London from 3 May until 17 June 1979 on rare, essential and controversial avant-garde film history.

Art in Cinema – Documents Toward a History of the Film Society (2006) by Scott MacDonald provides extensive and fascinating documentation of one of the most important film societies in American history. Art in Cinema presents complete programs presented by the legendary society; dozens of previously unavailable letters between Stauffacher, his collaborators, and filmmakers including Maya Deren, Hans Richter, Vincent Minelli, and Man Ray; a reprint of the society's original catalog, which features essays by Henry Miller and others; and a wide range of other remarkable historical documents. (Temple University Press)

Links

 

SEE ALSO

Norman McLaren (1914-1987) was a Scottish-born Canadian animator and film director known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB). Norman McLaren is remembered for his experiments with image and sound as he developed a number of groundbreaking techniques for combining and synchronizing animation with music. (Wikipedia)

Screenplay (2005) is one of Christian Marclay's visual scores, in which found materials are collated as a representation of a sound performance to be interpreted by musicians. It is Marclay's intention that his film be viewed by performers as a score. Screenplay is compiled from film footage that Marclay spliced into something of a narrative. In addition, he introduced simple, colorful digital animations of lines and waveforms and big, round dots on top of some of the footage. (disquiet)

Sons et Lumières (2004) – A History of Sound in the Art of the 20th Century (in French) by Marcella Lista and Sophie Duplaix published by the Centre Pompidou for the excellent Paris exhibition in September 2004 until January 2005.


Curated by the Pompidou’s Sophie Duplaix with the Louvre’s Marcella Lista, the show required a good three or four hours to absorb, with its bombardment of sensory and intellectual input, including painting, sound sculpture, sound/light automata, film and video, and room-size installations. (Frieze Magazine)

Mycenae-Alpha (1978) composed by Iannis Xenakis on the UPIC system, presents an example of the relationship between graphic image and sonic structure in electroacoustic music. The graphic score of Mycenae-Alpha provides a basis for an analysis of the work’s form and a guide to its characteristic sonic features. Mycenae-Alpha is also the first work to be composed entirely on the UPIC system. The UPIC is a tool for the graphic composition of electroacoustic music which was first developed in the late 1970s by Iannis Xenakis and his staff at the Center for Studies in Mathematical and Automated Music in Paris. (Ronald Squibbs)

Notations 21 (2009) by Theresa Sauer features illustrated musical scores from more than 100 international composers, all of whom are making amazing breakthroughs in the art of notation. Notations 21 is a celebration of innovations in musical notation, employing an appreciative aesthetic for both the aural and visual beauty of these creations. The musical scores in this edition were created by composers whose creativity could not be confined by the staff and clef of traditional western notation, but whose musical language can communicate with the contemporary audience in a uniquely powerful way. (Notations 21 Project)