A Pop-Classical Quiz For You

by Maureen Buja, Interlude

Enjoy and have fun!

Creating a New Music World: Liszt’s Hungarian Fantasia

By Maureen Buja, Interlude

The Fantasia / Fantasy as a genre in the 19th century (versus the 17th-century English fantasias, which were very different) gave the composer enormous range to use his imagination on whatever he had decided to fantasize about. In Liszt’s case, his Fantasia on Hungarian Folk Melodies from 1849–1852 takes Hungarian folk themes of contrasting character and, in a free form, makes improvisational-style permutations on the music.

Hermann Biow: Franz Liszt, 1943

To look at where Liszt got this material, we have to look back through his own catalogue. Liszt’s Magyar Rhapsodiak/Ungarische Rhapsodien, S242/R105c, which was written for solo piano around 1846–1847, uses many of the same melodies that appear later in his Hungarian Rhapsody No. 14 in F minor, S242/R106, perhaps the most famous of his Hungarian Rhapsody cycle of 19 works, written in 1847.

Some of the melodies in the 14th Rhapsody come from Hungarian folk songs, such as ‘Magosan repül a daru’ (The Crane Flies High), which is used in the slow introduction, and the well-known ‘Koltó csárdás’ is used in the quick section, while others are of ‘uncertain origin’, and may, in fact have been written by Liszt himself.

In the case of the Fantasie über ungarische Volksmelodien (Fantasia on Hungarian Folk Melodies), S. 123. Liszt created a work for piano and orchestra that takes the earlier works for piano solo and transforms them into something greater. The piano ‘improvisations’ are set against a dancing orchestral backdrop that only serves to place them in greater contrast.

The work was dedicated to Hans von Bülow, one of his early students and eventual husband of his daughter Cosima (who later left von Bülow for Richard Wagner). The premiere was given in Pest, Hungary, on 1 June 1853, with von Bülow at the piano.

Fritz Leuchart: Hans von Bülow

This 1953 performance was recorded with Julian von Karolyi on the piano and Edmund Nick leading the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra. The orchestra was founded in 1893 and was the orchestra for three important Mahler premieres: His symphonies nos. 4 and 8, and was where the posthumous premiere of Das Lied von der Erde, conducted by Bruno Walter, was given. Wilhelm Furtwängler made his conducting debut with the orchestra in 1908. Due to the loss of players, the orchestra ceased during WWII but was restarted by the city of Munich under new leadership and its current name. The leadership by Sergiu Celibidache from 1979 to 1996 restored the orchestra’s reputation and quality. Celibidache was succeeded by some of the leading conductors of the modern age: James Levine (1999–2004), Christian Thielemann (2004–2011), Lorin Maazel (2012–2014), and Valery Gergiev (2015–2022). In 2023, Israeli conductor Lahav Shandi was announced as chief conductor starting in the 2026–27 season.

Edmund Nick

Edmund Nick (1891–1874) was a German conductor, composer, and music critic. Although his degree was in law from the University of Graz in 1918, by 1919 he was working as an accompanist in Breslau. In 1933, he moved to Berlin and in 1945 to Munich, where he was a cabaret director and then, in 1947, chief conductor of the Bavarian State Opera. He was professor (1949) at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater München and from 1952–1956, was head of the music department of West German Radio, Cologne.

Julian von Karoly

Julian von Karolyi was a German-Hungarian pianist (1914–1993) who studied with Josef Pembaur, Jr., in Munich, Max von Pauer in Leipzig, Alfred Cortot in Paris, and Ernő Dohnányi in Budapest. He was known for his interpretations of Chopin and Liszt and made his debut recital in Berlin in 1934. He continued to perform throughout the war in Hungary, Germany, Spain, and Scandinavia. After the war, he made his base in Munich and started a series of international tours through Europe, North and South America, and Asia.

Performed by

Julian von Karolyi
Edmund Nick
Orchestre Philharmonique de Munich

Recorded in 1953

Here Be A Dragon

by Maureen Buja, Interlude

With a joyous call on his horn, Siegfried announces his presence in the great forest of Fafner. Turned into a dragon by the lure of the Ring, Fafner, one of the two giants who built Valhalla for Wotan, is being sought by Siegfried. Siegfried, who has been raised by the dwarf Mime, is afraid of nothing and has been sent by Mime to defeat Fafner. Mime, of course, has his own agenda in this – after Siegfried has killed the dragon, Mime will offer him a poisoned cup and gain the ring of power.

Daniel Brenna (Siegfried) from Finnish National Opera © Ralph Larmann

Siegfried arrives at Fafner’s cave where Woton the Wanderer, who wants to see the battle, and Alberich, who originally stole the gold that made the ring from Rhinemaidens but lost it all to Wotan, are also waiting.

With his horn call, Siegfried has awoken Fafner, who soon emerges. 

He’s defeated by Siegfried and in his last moments, warns Siegfried about the fatal qualities of the ring.  

As Siegfried withdraws his sword, he’s splashed with Fafner’s hot blood and burns himself. He sucks his burn and, in taking in Fafner’s blood, can understand the bird he couldn’t understand earlier. He’d seen Fafner’s ring without interest before but now, on the advice of the bird, keeps the ring. 

Mime appears with his congratulatory drink, which Siegfried, now with the dragon’s blood advantage, realizes his danger and kills Mime. 

© South China Morning Post

And so the dragon is defeated, his enemies are disposed of, and the naïve Siegfried learns about a new trial he can try: the bird has told him about a woman sleeping on a rock surrounded by magic fire! Off to discover if he can complete his hero’s education by learning fear from this woman, Siegfried sets off again on his next adventure.

And so we look at Chinese New Year 2024: the Year of the Wood Dragon. The dragon symbolizes power, nobleness, honour, luck, and success. Wood brings vitality and creativity. This is the year for people who want to change the world. The year for perfectionists who are goal-oriented. It’s been 60 years since our last Wood Dragon year, so look around carefully for the last set of goal-oriented perfectionists born as Wood Dragons. They include Boris Johnson and Keanu Reeves, actress Sandra Bullock and vice-president Kamala Harris, musicians Robert Trujillo of Metallica and Eddie Vedder of Peal Jam – it should make for an interesting year!

Rising Hope: Ralph Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending

by Maureen Buja, Interlude

The orchestra paints a calm scene – blue skies, some clouds – and then a rising song. It’s the skylark, a bird of the open farm and of the heath. Its song, sung only by the male, is delivered in flight while hovering some 50 to 100 meters (160 to 330 feet) above the ground. The larks rise from the earth almost vertically and then hover, singing, before returning to earth. Its multiple-song flights can last for up to an hour.

For the listener on the ground, the song seems to come from nowhere – we’re not in a forest but in open ground. At 100 meters, the little bird is only a dot in the sky.

Skylark (Alauda arvensisO (Photo by Margaret Holland)

This being the bird kingdom, the remarkable ability to hover and sing seems to be one of those sexual tests that nature provides: can hover and sing, therefore in good fitness and good parent material. In real life, a lark’s song can last as long as 20 minutes before it returns to earth to rise again. We don’t hear the melody that Vaughan Williams used – the lark’s song is sweet and piercing but very repetitive.

On the other hand, we’re not the recipients of the lark’s song – that’s for the female lark to interpret.

E.O. Hoppé: Vaughan Williams, 1920

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958) wrote the first version of his remarkable pastoral romance, The Lark Ascending in the dark days of 1914, first as a version for violin and piano before setting it aside for war service. Returning to composition in 1919, it was the first work he took up, creating the orchestral version. The violin and piano version received its premiere on 15 December 1920, with Marie Hall, the dedicatee, as soloist. She reprised her solo part in the orchestral premiere in London on 14 June 1921. As an occasional piece, it has remained one of the most enjoyable pieces for violin soloists and orchestras of the 20th century.

In his manuscript, Vaughan Williams quotes lines from the eponymous poem by George Meredith (1828–1909), taking lines from different sections of the 122-line poem: lines 1–4, 65–70, 77–79, and then the closing couplet.

G.F. Watts: George Meredith, 1893 (London: National Portrait Gallery)

He rises and begins to round,
He drops the silver chain of sound
Of many links without a break,
In chirrup, whistle, slur and shake,
…
For singing till his heaven fills,
’T is love of earth that he instils,
And ever winging up and up,
Our valley is his golden cup,
And he the wine which overflows
To lift us with him as he goes:
…
He is, the dance of children, thanks
Of sowers, shout of primrose-banks,
And eye of violets while they breathe;
…
Till lost on his aërial rings
In light, and then the fancy sings.

In those 15 lines, Vaughan Williams gives us his image of the lark, rising into the air and dropping his melody to the earth below. It’s the song of heaven, the love of the earth, and all the hope for tomorrow and tomorrow’s children that are encapsulated in the little bird’s sound.

The work unfolds in one continuous movement, with each new theme introduced and linked by the violinist’s ‘eloquent soliloquies’. In the end, the violin returns to its opening phrases, and the sound drops away, ‘lost on his aerial rings’ as he flies higher and higher.

Meredith describes the song as linking ‘chirrup, whistle, slur and shake’ in an unbroken line. Yet it’s all the other elements that contribute to the effectiveness of Vaughan Williams’ setting: the calmness of the scene, the contented happiness of the lark, and the prospect of only good.

Why do we hear this as not only a song of nature but also as one of hope? The bird must sing his song and never knows on whose ears it will fall. When it falls on ours, we can only look up in awe at this sound descending from the sky above. It draws us up into the lark’s world, and in Vaughan Williams’ setting, which creates melody from just suggestions from the bird, we are carried on wings of song to a better tomorrow.

The Hymn of Hope

Emily Dickinson’s “Hope” is the thing with feathers

by Maureen Buja 

 

American poet Emily Dickinson’s three-stanza lyrical poem ‘”Hope” is the thing with feathers” gives us the idea of a mysterious singing being. Invisible to the eye, singing songs without words, the being can be heard through the most difficult times and its song keeps the listener warm. It gives hope to the poet and yet asks nothing in return, not even to be fed. It can be imagined as a bird (it perches, it sings) yet there’s an extraordinary quality about it that removes it from regular bird-dom.

HOPE

“Hope” is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all,

And sweetest in the Gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I ‘ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of me.
Emily Dickinson

Emily Dickinson, daguerrotype, 1848

As with many of her early poems, the style is influenced by hymnody: the 12-line poem is in three 4-line quatrains and alternates three beats and four beats in each stanza. In the poem, originally just entitled “Hope”, and now known by its entire first line, each line in a stanza changes between iambic tetrameter (4 beats) and iambic trimeter (3 beats). Composers have taken up this most popular of Dickinson’s poems and made works of true beauty.

We will look at the setting by 4 modern composers, each of whom approaches the poem in a different fashion.

In his tribute to the lost birds of the world, both physical and metaphorical, composer Christopher Tin brings Dickinson’s poem to life, sending it out over the sea to return to comfort the listener.

Christopher Tin winning a Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s), 2014)

American pianist and composer James Adler, setting the song for solo voice, uses the cello and piano to provide a solid background that both supports the voice and makes their own comments on the text in music.

James Adler

The text has been used for songs about surviving AIDS and about surviving our latest epidemic, COVID. Here, Italian composer Ivo Antognini (b. 1963) dedicates his choral setting to the choral director Dario Piumatti, who came down with COVID during those early fatal days, but survived, perhaps because of ‘thing with feathers.’

Ivo Antognini

Claire Victoria Roberts’ 2002 setting of the poem gives us a bird in motion, restless and jagged. The performance involves handclapping and whispers, and through all of it, hope sings through.

Claire Victoria Roberts

In these four very different vocal settings of Dickinson’s little poem, we hear how music can augment her thoughts: the mood can be restless, but Hope still comes through. The times can be difficult, but Hope still comes through. Even when things are all chorally smooth, Hope still comes through.

This is our wish for the New Year: Hope still comes through. When the nations of the world forget that tomorrow is the goal and try to make today the end of everything, Hope still must come through.

Here’s to your own New Year, full of Hope.

Composers and their Poets: Ernest Chausson

 by Maureen Buja ,  Interlude

  

French Chansons Composed by Ernest Chausson

Ernest Chausson, by Guy & Mockel, Paris (ca. 1897)

French composer Ernest Chausson’s early death in a bicycle accident cut short a career just as it was beginning to flourish. His position as secretary of the Société Nationale de Musique for 13 years put him at the centre of France’s active music networks. He studied with Massenet and César Franck at the Paris Conservatoire, which he attended at the relatively advanced age of 24, was friends with Vincent d’Indy, and many other composers including Henri Duparc, Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, and Isaac Albéniz. He also knew the poet Mallarmé, although he never set any of his poetry, and the painter Monet.

Chausson, standing, turning pages for Debussy (1893)

The poets he set include Camille Mauclair (1872-1945), Jean Richepin (1849-1926), Alfred de Musset (1810-1857), Leconte de Lisle (1818-1894), Maurice Bouchor (1855-1929), and Maurice Maeterlinck (1849-1949), among others. If we look just at his contemporaries, Camille Mauclair, Maurice Bouchor, and Maurice Maeterlinck, we have three poets of very different sensibilities.

Camille Mauclair by Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer (1896)

Camille Mauclair (the pseudonym of Séverin Faust) was not only a poet but also a novelist, biographer, travel writer, and critic. He was an admirer of Mallarmé and was most famous for his roman à clef, Le Soleil des Morts (1898). For his contemporaries, it was brilliant portrait of the leading actors in the arts of his day, including writers, artists, critics, and musicians. For us, it has become an important historical document about the French avant-garde at the end of the nineteenth century. One of the most musically relevant portraits in the novel is that of Debussy at the premiere of “Prélude à L’Après-midi d’un faune”. Chausson appears in the book as ‘Rudolphe Méreuse’ and is the dedicatee of the novel. He is, in the novel, praised as ‘ …the composer whose symphonies, with those of César Franck, were the only original works to appear since Wagner.’

Mauclair provided the words for Chausson’s Op. 27 lieder. The first song, Les heures, casts us directly into the shadowy decadent world of the French fin du siècle: the piano provides a mordent background to the poet, ‘singing until death’ the pale hours of the night. 

Maurice Bouchor

Maurice Bouchor was a poet and playwright with an interest in music. He worked with the musician Julien Tiersot to preserve French folk songs and published a book of them for use in schools.

His poetry was set extensively, and Chausson set it a number of times, most memorably in his Op. 8 set. This set of four poems describes love in all aspects: from the young love in the first poem, the memory of a former lover in the second, to the broken heart of ‘Printemps triste’ and the memories of the happy past in ‘Nos souvenirs’. 

Maurice Maeterlinck

The Belgian playwright, poet and essayist Maurice Maeterlinck was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911. At the end of the 19th century and into the early 20th century, he was a source of musical inspiration: Debussy set his Pelléas and Mélisande, and it inspired Gabriel Fauré, Arnold Schoenberg, Jean Silbelius and others. 13 of his other plays were also made into operas, inspired symphonic poems, or had incidental music written for them by some 40 composers. His plays forged a new style, an example of which can be seen in Pelléas and Mélisande: the setting is lean and spare and the characters have no foresight and a limited view and understanding of themselves and the world they inhabit. The forces that compel people, not the emotions that drive them, was the centre of his style.

Maeterlinck’s first collection of poetry, Serres chaudes (Hothouses) (1889), was the source for Chausson’s Op. 24 song cycle. The second song, ‘Serre d’ennui’ (Hothouse boredom), seems to capture the overly humid confines of a hothouse, where boredom is blue but is captured within a green world where all is still. 

Chausson set poetry by many other poets, including Verlaine, Baudelaire, Leconte de Lisle, and Gautier. In his brief life, Chausson brought the French chanson forward out of the Romanticism found in composers such as Massenet and Franck and closer to the more introspective world found in Debussy’s work.

Happiness in Love: Debussy’s L’isle Joyeuse

by Maureen Buja, Interllude

The Fêtes galante style was a term specifically created by the French Academy in the early 18th century to describe Watteau’s paintings of country or parkland parties. It was his way of giving his patrons what they wanted, namely, pictures of themselves, and of giving the Academy what they wanted, namely, pictures on historical or mythological themes. The Academy disapproves of straight portraiture, but a patron has demands he will make on a poor painter, so what was Watteau to do?

Watteau: Embarkation for Cythera (1717)

Cythera, or, in modern Greek Kythira, is the Ionian island where Venus / Aphrodite was born, so would have been a destination for lovers everywhere.

Lancret: Conversation galante (1719) (The Wallace Collection)

The painting is everything a patron could want in a work – beautiful landscape, beautiful figures in beautiful clothes, beautiful statuary, and cupids everywhere. For the Academy, it’s a classical scene with mythological overtones. For the viewer, we have so many expressions of joy in the work: the couples in the middle of the work give us three stages of love – one couple in front of the statue is still engaged in their tryst, the three couples under the trees are in the acts of disengaging, while the couple walking down the hill are looking back in memory. More couples down by the boat are embarking for their voyage back to home. There’s no sorrow, no sadness, just a happiness and satisfaction in a perfect world.

Other painters, such as Fragonard, Lancret, and François de Troy also painted works in this heightened style, but the style itself was gone by the mid-18th century.

Jean François de Troy: La Déclaration d’amour (1731) (Berlin: Charlottenburg Palace)

The French composer Claude Debussy (1862–1918), known for his mastery in making one genre of painting, French Impressionism, into music, took up Watteau’s pastoral ideals with a work from 1904, L’isle Joyeuse, that gave a modernist twist to the older genre. First written for piano, it was later orchestrated with Debussy’s permission by the Italian conductor Bernardino Molinari. The orchestral work had its debut in 1923.

The piano version seems like it starts us at a precarious landing. The dancing rhythms carry us onto the island and up to the grove of Venus, where all delights await. It’s very much a personal piece, as though we are looking through the eyes of a character to see what’s around us. 

As an orchestral work, there’s a larger scope for setting the scene. More than just involving an individual character, the orchestra can provide a whole world of people. The celebration is heightened, and there’s more details in the sound picture – the woodwinds flitter Cupid-like, the harp adds another voice, and with the brass sound, it’s as though the whole world glitters. 

Conveying a picture in music is difficult but, in this work, Debussy and his orchestrator Molinari give us a world we wish we could just step into.

Brahms on the Road: A Trip to Transylvania with Piano and Violin I

Johannes Brahms

In 1879, Brahms wrote to the librarian at the Gesesllschaft der Musikfreunde that he and the violinist Joseph Joachim were planning a tour to the extremes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Could he please send him, with the greatest urgency, some music by Beethoven, Schubert, and a bit of Schumann? Please have this in the mail two weeks ago! If the librarian couldn’t get these out of the library, please buy the Peters edition of the individual works requested and if those aren’t available, the complete violin sonatas of Beethoven and Schubert would do. Quickly!

Brahms was taking to the hinterlands with Joachim for a series of concerts. They were travelling deep into the Austro-Hungarian empire, to the middle of current-day Romania, which for the Viennese-living Brahms, would be like a New Yorker venturing into deepest Iowa.

For Brahms, this was a momentous decision: he hadn’t been on the road touring since the late 1860s when he needed the money, and when he was on tour, he complained about what the constant concertizing did to his fingers. Nonetheless, when Joachim’s agent suggested the tour as a way of combining music making with a holiday, Brahms was interested. Now that he was wealthier and could afford the leisure time, he could travel for the pleasure of it.

Joseph Joachim

It wasn’t easy to convince Brahms to go. Initially, he was reluctant, writing to his publisher Simrock that ‘…all concert tours…are a dubious pleasure.’ He said he wanted to travel in comfort and do some touring, but his concertizing companions, in the past, only wanted to do more and more concerts, scarcely lifting their eyes from the music to admire the scenery, and make money, of course. Eventually, though, he agreed and the tour was on.

Brahms and Joachim had only one day of rehearsal in Budapest, but then they were playing music that they probably knew from memory, having played it together for past quarter-century, with the one exception of a new work. The repertoire they travelled with included works from Bach to Brahms’ latest new work: the Violin Concerto, Op. 77. Joachim was the dedicatee of the work and had played its premiere, which hadn’t been a success. Joachim wanted to take it on the road as he needed to perform it more but Brahms wasn’t certain about reducing the orchestra to piano accompaniment alone. Joachim brought along Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto as a backup, reminding Brahms that he had learned it from Mendelssohn himself.

The tour started on 13 September 1879 in Budapest, then by train to the city of Arad, just over the border in modern-day Romania. The next morning, off to Timişoara by carriage for a concert, return that night back to Arad, and then off to Sighişoara by train, concert the next day, and off the following day to Braşov. Back to the carriage for a trip to Sibiu, then onto Cluj, returning by train to Budapest on 24 September. This 11-day trip covered 1,600 km (1,000 miles).

The concert in Arad sold out almost immediately. The programme included Schumman’s Fantasiestücke for Piano and Violin (an arrangement of the Fantasiestücke for clarinet and piano), Tartini’s Devil’s Trill Sonata, and works by Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms. 

Arad wasn’t quite as desolate and isolated as Brahms had imagined it to be in this tour of remote regions of the Empire. It was an important transportation hub, had a large military establishment, had the sixth music academy on the continent (opening only 11 years after the Royal Academy in London), and was a bustling commercial centre.

Reviewers noted in particular Brahms’ performance of the Schumann Novelletten, which seems to have been Brahms’ first performance of the entire work ever.

Off by single-track railroad to Timişoara, where the concert was promoted as presenting ‘The Piano Hero and the Violin King.’ The concert started with the Beethoven Violin Sonata, Op. 30, and closed with the Brahms Violin Concerto, Op. 77, arranged for violin and piano. 

Finally, Brahms’ Violin Concerto was coming in for praise, with one reviewer calling it ‘one of the most important compositions today,’ but wished for an orchestra to accompany, rather than just a piano. Reports of the concert couldn’t understate their importance to the town: ‘anybody who was anyone, by birth, rank, position, anyone with an understanding for music, was present. They held their breath at the wonderful sounds of the Violin King and the rare virtuosity of Brahms, a pianist of the first rank. Stormy applause followed each number; the audience left highly satisfied, conscious of having been present at an evening of rare artistry.’

Wearing Your Music on Your Gown

by Maureen Buja

The 2023 Met Gala brought out all kinds of dresses, including Karl Lagerfeld’s 40-year-old violin dress, designed in 1983 for Chloé, worn here by Olivia Wilde.

Olivia Wilde in Lagerfeld

But Lagerfeld wasn’t the only designer to find his inspiration in the instruments of music. Viktor and Rolf used pink violins to great effect in 2008.

Viktor & Rolf, Spring 2008 Ready-to-Wear (photo by Marcio Madeira)

In fact, if we go back to 1939, we have Elsa Schiaparelli’s music dress in white organza and gloves, embroidered with coloured metallic threads.

Elsa Schiaparelli, 1939 (Met Museum)

In 1988, Yves Saint Laurent’s Spring collection used Braque’s musical instruments as its inspiration.

Michael G. Cunningham: Free Designs: IV. Georges Braque (Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra; Vit Micka, cond.)

Yves Saint Laurent, Braque, Spring 1988 Couture

In their Fall 2011 Ready-to-Wear collection, Threeasfour used parts of real instruments in their design, such as this violin body.

Threeasfour, Fall 2011 Ready-to-Wear, Violin

Maria Grazia Chiuri and Pierpaolo Piccioli created Valentino’s Spring 2014 show completely based on opera, including this dress based on La Traviata that was later worn by Katy Perry to the 2014 GRAMMY Awards.

Giuseppe Verdi: La traviata – Act I: Dell’invito trascorsa e gia l’ora (Rosanna Carteri, Violetta; Rome Opera House Chorus; Rome Opera House Orchestra; Pierre Monteux, cond.)

Valentino, La Traviata, Spring 2014 Couture

Katy Perry at the 2014 Grammy’s in Valentino

For the Spring 2017 Ready-to-Wear collection, Dolce & Gabbana used the familiar keyboard design for a very short skirt, worn under a highly elaborate jacket.

Dolce & Gabbana, Spring 2017 ready-to-wear

For the Spring 2020 catwalks, Jeremy Scott for Moschino also dipped into Braque’s cubist instruments.

Yellow Violin, Moschino

Pink Guitar, Moschino

And Kerby Jean-Raymond for Pyer Moss used not only the familiar piano key pattern but also the shapes of instruments, such as the curve of an electric guitar on a lapel.

Pyer Moss, Spring 2020, Ready-to-Wear – Piano top

Pyer Moss, Spring 2020, Ready-to-Wear, Piano bag

Pyer Moss, Spring 2020, Ready-to-Wear Piano – Red with Keyboard

Pyer Moss, Spring 2020, Ready-to-Wear – Guitar Lapel

If all this is just a bit too high-style, then we can look at the new villain character for next season’s Doctor Who. Played by actor Jinkx Monsoon, the character’s costume not only has a piano keyboard extra- extra-wide lapel but also a piano keyboard lining to her ominous cape.

Jinkx Monsoon, 2023

And all of this is just a small part of how music has become part of couture.