Symphony847 explores the deep connection between visual art and orchestral sound

What does it mean for music to be “inspired by” a painting?

It’s a phrase that appears often in concert programs and program notes, but as composer and writer Nell Shaw Cohen argues in the New Music USA article, “Music Inspired by Visual Art,” it’s also “a problematically vague descriptor.”
👉 https://newmusicusa.org/nmbx/music-inspired-by-visual-art/

For some composers, visual art serves as a starting point—a source of mood or atmosphere. For others, the relationship runs deeper. In those cases, Cohen writes, music can “illuminate, comment upon, and converse with visual art,” offering listeners not just a response to an image, but a new way of experiencing it.

That distinction comes into sharp focus in Symphony847’s upcoming concert, Paintings Composed, on May 23. The program is built entirely around works that engage directly with visual art—not as distant inspiration, but as an active creative partner.

At the center of this tradition is Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, a work that has become one of the most vivid examples of music shaped by imagery. Written in 1874 after the death of his friend, artist and architect Viktor Hartmann, the piece traces a path through a gallery of Hartmann’s works. Each movement captures a different image—a grotesque gnome, a medieval castle, a bustling marketplace—while a recurring “Promenade” theme places the listener in motion, walking from one work to the next.

The result is not simply descriptive. It is immersive. The listener doesn’t just imagine the artwork; they move through it.

That idea—music as a way of seeing—runs throughout the May 23 program.

In Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead, a single painting by Arnold Böcklin becomes the basis for a slow, hypnotic journey across dark water. The music unfolds with a steady, almost physical motion, often compared to the rhythm of oars cutting through waves. Rather than depicting the image directly, Rachmaninoff captures its atmosphere—its stillness, its weight, and its quiet sense of inevitability.

More than a century later, Stella Sung approaches the relationship between art and music from a different angle in Rockwell Reflections. Drawing on five works by Norman Rockwell, Sung builds a series of musical portraits that move between humor, nostalgia, and deeper historical reflection. In this case, the connection between image and sound is not just atmospheric, but narrative: each movement suggests a story, inviting the listener to engage with the artwork as a lived experience.

Taken together, the three works on the program illustrate a range of approaches—atmospheric, narrative, and structural—but all share a common goal. They extend the experience of visual art beyond the frame.

Cohen’s article points to research suggesting that pairing music with visual art can deepen emotional response and understanding. Music, Cohen notes, unfolds over time, encouraging audiences to linger with an image rather than move past it. In a concert setting, that temporal quality becomes central. A painting that might otherwise be absorbed in seconds is instead explored across minutes, shaped by rhythm, harmony, and orchestral color.

The effect is subtle but powerful. Music does not replace the visual experience; it reframes it.

In that sense, Paintings Composed is less about illustrating art and more about expanding it. The concert hall becomes a different kind of gallery—one where images are not fixed, but evolving, carried forward by sound.

For audiences, the result is an experience that resists quick interpretation. It asks for attention, and rewards it with something richer than recognition alone.

Paintings Composed will be performed by Symphony847 on Saturday, May 23 at 7:30 p.m. at Vernon Hills High School.

Tickets are available at:
https://link.symphony847.org/Paintings26