This CD is the result of Marc Battier's exploration of relationships between image and sound. Battier used nine paintings by Roberto Matta, a celebrated French Expressionist/Surrealist painter, as the basis for musical compositions. As Michael Pope wrote, "The paintings of Roberto Matta can now be heard. When the painter listened to the music resulting from his paintings, he said: 'This is what I hear when I paint'."
How did Battier do it? He first looked at the paintings, intuitively and analytically, finding trajectories in texture, color, and shape, and noting their combinations as evolving complexities in the graphic design. He then scanned parts of the paintings to create graphics files from which pixels could be linked to musical information. He then mixed the layers of musical information to match the changing complexities he encountered while scanning the paintings. The result is a musical representation of the painting.
The booklet that comes with this CD is extremely interesting. Battier discusses relationships between sound and imagery and goes into considerable detail in describing his musicalization of Matta's wonderful paintings.
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