Art & Music: Turner - Music of His Time



Sample Track


Sinfonia in B flat major, Op. 18, No. 2, "Overture to Lucio Silla"
Performed by: Failoni Orchestra, Budapest


Conducted by: Gmur, Hanspeter



Allegro assai 3:27


Art and Music
Turner - Music of His Time
Music by J.C. Bach, Haydn, Field, Weber, Paganini, Mendelssohn, Chopin, and Berlioz
Author: Hugh Griffith
1 CD with full-colour, illustrated, explanatory booklet
Naxos 8.558116

In the final period of his life, the paintings of J.M.W Turner (1775-1851) baffled his public with the daring originality of their colours. But by then he was already a great British institution and revered as the greatest landscape painter of the age. On this CD, the world of Turner is given a musical perspective with a carefully chosen selection of pieces by the finest composers of his time. Inside, Hugh Griffith provides explanatory notes on his life and musical environment.

As soon as it is revealed that Turner was friendly with the organist and composer John Danby, who very likely fostered in the painter a love of music, a new dimension to his art is uncovered. Direct connections between his paintings and works by Berlioz and Mendelssohn, for example, draw the two worlds together, and encourage a broader perspective of each.