Monday 18 May 2009

Mendelssohn's Octet

A couple of weekends ago, we in the U.K. had a "Mendelssohn Weekend" in celebration of the 200th Anniversary of the composers birth. Following on with this theme, I thought now would be the perfect time to show you my painting, "Mendelssohn's Octet", which I produced last year.
It was inspired by another Anniversary. On this occasion, a 30th Wedding Anniversary which I was invited to. The husband of the couple is an outstanding violinist in the well known Fitzwilliam String Quartet and as part of the celebration, he rallied a few more musicians (including his wife) and the quartet for that one evening became an octet. We, the small group of guests were treated to a one-off performance of "Mendelssohn's Octet". It was a perfect evening which was rounded off with a very tasty meal at a local reastaurant/pub.
For me it was a wonderful escape. At the time I was going through the terrible trauma of my Mother having major surgery for Bowel Cancer. This was the second Cancer operation in three years. I did not know if she would survive. My whole world seemed to be collapsing.
Fortunetly she did survive and now has the "all clear".
It never ceases to amaze me how the power of music can transport and transform you to another place.

8 comments:

  1. Brilliant! I'd not seen this before! You can almost hear it. I hope JS was impressed. He should commission a Fitzwilliam Quartet group portrait on the strength of it. There must be commercial possibilities doing illustrations like this for promotional material for musicians if nothing else.

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  2. ...ANd I meant to ask, how big is it?

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  3. Lovely - keep them coming. I know just how hard it was for you - it is great to think that listening to the music and then doing the painting helped you through that difficult time.

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  4. You are so right about the power of music,Denise. Love your illustration, it's so happy and light hearted. BFN.

    Lesley

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  5. Lovely. I just wrote about my love for music!!!! Fitting indeed.

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  6. Lovely picture. I would like to buy some greetings cards of this

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  7. Wendy - I'm sorry but I do not have any greetings card of this particular image. Thanks for the interest.

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  8. Dominic - the size of the painting is 45cm x 15cm at its widest points. It does not have straight contour lines. I thought that having "wavey" edges would suit the fluidity and movement of the subject being portrayed.

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