After Three Rene Magritte Surrealist Paintings
Programme Notes by Nigel Clark:
The Exotic Dream of the Wonderful Monsieur Magritte can be performed on either the trumpet or cornet or other Bb brass instruments and in this recording Harmen has chosen to play it on the cornet. The modern cornet has both the punch of the trumpet and a lyrical quality which I believe brings something extra to the musical palate of the performer.
I wrote The Exotic Dream of the Wonderful Monsieur Magritte for the extraordinary Belgian virtuoso cornet player Harmen Vanhoorne and was originally written for cornet solo and brass band. Living in Belgium I was not only inspired by the stellar talent of Harmen Vanhoorne who I have worked with on many occasion but the Belgian artist Rene Magritte (1898 - 1967). As part of my research I visited the Magritte Museum in Brussels many times to absorb myself in the surrealist artist's work. I love the way that themes and artistic gestures flow freely throughout his work, from bowler hats and bowler-hatted men, to umbrellas, pipes and doves.
The work is related to the Mysteries of the Horizon, I reimagined the accompaniment by creating a backcloth of serialist sounds. I have let themes and musical gestures flow freely from section to section. As you would expect with a concerto based on surrealist paintings, The Exotic Dream of the Wonderful Monsieur Magritte is not programmatic, but yet I have tried to colour each section with an atmosphere that reflects each of the Magritte paintings that I have chosen to capture. The sections in the score are entitled 1. The Menaced Assassin 2. The Flavour of Tears & 3. The Discovery of Fire. The first section The Menaced Assassin is the most aggressive of the three sections; the painting depicts a naked woman's corpse lying on a chez-long type bed in a sparsely decorated room. In the room is a man, who is assumed to be the murderer, listening to a windup gramophone. The assassin does not realise that hiding behind the door, apparently lying in wait for him, are two men wearing bowler hats and dressed in black, one carrying a club and the other a large net. There are also three male observers looking in on the scene through a window with mountains in the distance. The Flavour of Tears is the emotional heart of this surrealist fantasy. The image is of a tobacco leaf in the shape of a bird, a 'birdleaf' with one solitary caterpillar eating away at it. The sky in the background is dark and foreboding. This painting is Magritte's response to Belgium being occupied during World War II. - A bird of peace who's disintegration prompts us to shed tears of sadness. For what is worth, this my favourite movement of the concerto and I tailor-made the work for Harmen's exceptional tone quality and lyrical style of playing. The final section, The Discovery of Fire is a tour de force of 'fire and vim' for the soloist. Magritte's portrait is of a Tuba that has burst into flames against a darkened background. What is ambiguous about this painting is that a tuba is made of metal and cannot catch fire. Perhaps it refers to the fact that sometimes a musician might be said to be `on fire' in a concert, meaning that they were playing at their absolute best.
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