A fond farewell to my piano

In 1974 I lived in Geneva, Switzerland and I was looking for a cellist to participate in a film for Télévision Suisse Romande featuring my kinetic painting with music and dance. Someone mentioned the American cellist Vivian King, who was then studying with the great Pierre Fournier. We made an appointment. I was about to ring Vivian's doorbell when I heard the sound of the Bach's Cello Suite Nr. 2.  I was enchanted.

In Vivian's apartment I noticed a rather nice Zimmermann piano. Curious, I tried a couple of bars of a Beethoven sonata. Oh, Vivian said - you're also a musician! Well, that's a long story. That was the beginning of twenty-one years of making music together.

In 1978 we settled in Amsterdam, near the Concertgebouw, where Vivian began to play regularly. The piano was hauled up (with ropes!) to our fourth floor apartment and that's where our sons both learned to play the piano.

Vivian and Norman playing Francœur's Adagio for BBC

When in 1993 BBC Television was visiting to make a documentary about my life making kinetic images to music, Director Jonathan Fulford said spontaneously: "Hey, why don't you guys just play something together?" Oh no! I had been so busy working in the UK and Amsterdam on the film "Concerto for Paintbrush and Orchestra" with Simon Rattle that I hadn't touched the piano for months. But Vivian said "Ah, why don't we do the first Movement of the Sonata by François Francœur. She knew it by heart and somehow, with just two takes, I managed to get through it. 

Vivian was already ill with acute leukaemia and tragically, she died three years later at 51. Her cello was acquired by our dear friend, the cellist Edith Neuman (formerly of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra). In 2021 I moved house and had to radically downsize, so I donated my piano to a lovely crowd-funded socio-cultural centre in Amsterdam - Pondok. It was a fond goodbye, watching it going down to street-level with a piano lift, but I knew it had found a good home.

   

Yesterday, after twenty-six years, my piano and Vivian's cello were finally re-united. They made music together at a little concert by the Meander Trio. And yes, with pianist Jenny Hess, Edith played that Adagio of the Sonata by François Francœur.... in memory of Vivian. It was a deeply emotional occasion for me and my boys.

     Edith Neuman (cello) and Jenny Hess (piano) reuniting my old friends

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Here's Pierre Fournier with the Francœur on YouTube. https://youtu.be/aUqqgPASxIg

 

An exploration

  

                          An exploration

My previous painting (see "Forever in the clouds") was to be one of a series. But my brushes came up with other ideas. My freely-brushed deep purple zigzag strokes, fading into mauve towards the horizon below, turned into an optimistic calligraphy taking us way up into a vast space. 

Then a kind of sadness came over me. Was it the worldwide tsunami of negative news - becoming unbearable in my old age? My only comfort was to be found in my palette of colours and my brushes.

So intuitively I gently began to surround my initial strokes with pastel greyish greens, blues and pinks, helping the pools of colour to float and meet up in space. I began to develop small dynamic conversations across the whole picture. Bit by bit, I was modulating from a minor key towards light and hope, even in the darkest tones. I was determined to find beauty in my sadness.

            

                                                  An exploration, watercolour 62 x 45 cm, 2022

So this is not just another cloudscape. It's an exploration of space. Enlarge the details: you might find some lovely little surprises. 

Forever in the clouds

Forever in the clouds

I'm in my studio, inspired by the soothing flow of Ragas, melodic structures, considered in the Indian tradition to have the ability to "colour the mind" and affect the emotions of the listener. 

I'm in the Flow, 

so totally involved that I forget the time, 

fully immersed, as I paint pools of watercolour

 that you might call clouds.

My coffee gets cold...

The Vietnamese Buddhist monk and master of Mindfulness, Thich Nhat Hanh, the activist for world-peace who passed away in January 2022, was convinced that human Mindfulness and compassion is a continuous positive state of mind that we can develop, share with others and pass on to future generations. It doesn't disappear when our body disintegrates. The energy that we have shared will take on different forms, just as rain or snow are other forms of ever-changing clouds. Our messages have no digital limitations. They are forever universally available as part of the Cosmos.

Forever in the clouds, watercolour 51 x 42 cm. 2022

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Rest in Peace

 

Rest in Peace

I'm lying on the massage table with my old aches and pains under the strong yet gentle hands of my holistic masseuse. For me she always puts on a CD of Ragas (in Sanskrit the word also means colouring), classical Indian music that affects our emotions and wellbeing. From the very first long tone I relax into what seems like a wonderful garden of continuously changing colours. For more than an hour I'm at peace with the world. If this were the very last experience of my life it would be a blessing. 

There, on my bed of colours, I suddenly realised how fortunate I am. I consciously sent my loving thoughts to all those now terribly unfortunate, to the tragically bereaved mourning the loss of their loved ones, young and old, wherever they may be. At that moment I was inspired to make this abstract painting for them, with vibrant but gentle watercolours, a paradise where their loved ones may rest in peace.

                  

                                             Rest in Peace, watercolour approx. 65 x 45 cm., 2022.
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