Nederlands Kamerkoor sings at a digital winding sea with motifs by Van Gogh and Klimt

A modern Gesamtkunstwerk or an ‘immersive concert experience’ in whichchoral music and painting merge. That’s the promise of the program Van Goghin Me by the Nederlands Kamerkoor and the Italian studio fuse*. Music byDebussy, Mahler, Schönberg is combined with digitally distorted paintings bycontemporaries Vincent van Gogh and Gustav Klimt. The performance was allowedto participate in the state visit of King Willem-Alexander to Austria thissummer, where it had its world premiere in the Vienna Konzerthaus. The reasonis the Gustav Klimt exhibition, now on display in the Amsterdam Van GoghMuseum and later in the Vienna Belvedere: that exhibition is also about makingartistic connections.

Also read the review of the exhibition in the Van Gogh Museum: How ‘GoldenBoy’ Gustav Klimt surfed the artistic waves of his time

What do you hear and why?

Rahul Gandolahage: „The Chamber Choir sings a cappella music by Saint-Saëns,Debussy, Satie, Alma and Gustav Mahler, Richard Strauss and Schönberg. Much ofit was originally not choral music, but instrumental music to which German andFrench poetry was later set. The ‘Adagietto’ from Mahlers Fifth Symphony forexample, has been arranged for chorus by Clytus Gottwald. He chose the poem_Im Abendrot_ by Joseph von Eichendorff as text. So it’s kind of a remix. Thelyrics are not in the program booklet. That would also be pointless, becauseit is dark in the room. But the lyrics are also not projected anywhere. So youhave no idea what you’re hearing. The music felt quite anonymous and distantas a result.”

Thomas van Huut: „I had studied the program in advance, but the reason behindthe musical choices was not clear to me. In his Paris period, Van Gogh was afan of Wagner, Klimt made the famous Beethoven Frieze. We don’t hear Wagnerand Beethoven. But why Satie and Saint-Saëns?”

What is there to see?

TvH: „On a large screen above the choir you see an endless amount of hair-fine, colored lines that flow and wave across the screen. Famous paintings byVan Gogh and Klimt loom up in the abstract patterns that arise as a result.For example, you recognize almond blossom and Wheatfield with crows by VanGogh, and the blistering gold of Klimts The kiss and Water hoses II. TheItalian multimedia studio fuse* collects live data during the concert: dataabout the sound, movements of the conductor and some choir members, in orderto let the ’emotion of the music’ drive the digital effects. So the paintingsare actually ‘remixed’ live.”

Thedigital version of Van Gogh ‘s Sunflowers. Photo Melle MeivogelTheNederlands Kamerkoor and the Italian studio fuse in Van Gogh in me.Photo Julia WeselyTheNederlands Kamerkoor and the Italian studio fuse in Van Gogh in me.Photo Julia Wesely TheNederlands Kamerkoor and the Italian studio fuse in Van Gogh in me*.Photo Julia Wesely

Is there synergy?

TvH: „I thought so at the visually more abstract moments: where the patternsswell with the vocals, it is indeed as if they are painting with their voices.Blue flecks looked pretty like puffs of breath in icy air. Sometimes I couldalso enjoy the colors with the music: beautiful blue and bright orange.”

RG: „A concert has always been a ‘living’ performance. The extra layer here isthat the paintings are also ‘performed’, but that didn’t do much for me. Ifound myself closing my eyes after just a few ‘paintings’ to be able to listento the music. And when I opened my eyes again, I saw nothing that surprisedme. The distortions became predictable.”

TvH: “When the original paintings loomed up from the abstract digitalmeandering seas, it sometimes almost hurt me: their rendering was so distortedthat you couldn’t see the nuances of the original paintings. Then it becomes apuzzle: guess your picture, which painting was distorted here? And because youcouldn’t read the sung lyrics, I found it difficult to make a substantiveconnection with the music.”

RG: “The distraction also lies in how the paintings were deformed. Inportraits, the facial skin seemed to run off like wet makeup. One face seemedsmeared with bird droppings. But there were beautiful moments. Then withMahler’s ‘Adagietto’ __from afar The kiss van Klimt emerged, in a kind ofdark forest of fiery orange trees, I thought that was a nice effect.Especially because the ‘Adagietto’ was a love letter for Alma Mahler. But youshould just know that, you couldn’t read it.”

Would this formula have worked better with abstract paintings?

TVH: “I don’t think so. A painting is finished, a painter is already workingwith colors that shimmer or wave. There is no need for an extra layer ofmovement. What you see now is a glorified visualizer from Windows Media Playercombined with a slideshow of famous paintings.”

Was it, as promised, an ‘immersive experience’?

RG: “Live music has always been an immersive experience.”

TvH: “Moving the image confused me most. After all, the ‘immersive’ power ofart is in your own imagination.”

RG: “And it will be filled in here for you.”

So this show doesn’t work?

RG: “Not as a Gesamtkunstwerk, but as a crowd puller. The audience wasrelatively young, younger than at most classical concerts. Carré was almostcompletely full. She drew the name Van Gogh into the hall, but I had thefeeling that the applause was ultimately mainly for the singers. So in thatrespect: successful.”

Classical/ Video Art

Van Gogh in Me by the Nederlands Kamerkoor and the Italian studio fuse*.

Heard and seen: 14/11 Carré, Amsterdam. Tour until 3/12.

Info: nederlandskamerkoor.nl

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A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of November 15, 2022

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