A Fantasia Of Art Nouveau: Narrowing The Search For Music

Building on my struggles in my last post to find a song that can suits my needs, I explored many different types of royalty free songs, searching for something that had combined the flavours of the songs in the previous post, or at least the same essence of one of them. I managed to narrow my choices down eventually to these 4, which I think are the most beautiful and have the most potential. I've also expressed my thoughts alongside each.

Boccherini: Duet for Two Violins
Expressive, yet lacks the slow paced build at the begining.

Rossini - Sonata for strings in B flat major (Part 2)

Sad, Slow & Expressive yet there not enough tempo change. Lacks dark tone.

Respighi: Gli Uccelli (The Birds), Part II. La Colomba (Andante espressivo - Allegro)

Nice 'Fluid' Sound  - Too paced, Not enough tempo change to animate with

I feel as though this next piece however, is the only one a came across that had everything I was looking for, emotion, dark, sad, cold, nicely paced, and beautifully soft sounding. I'm not going to lie, I've struggled trying to describe what it is I'm looking for, but this piece answers all my questions to put it bluntly.

Chopin: Nocturne, Opus 9 No. 1

This is my clear choice and the more listen to the piece, the more it makes sense. Its true however now I've decided on this piece, I need to properly analyse the song, considering what imagery it may convey, also understand how to incorporate my own style and animation/visual idea's with it's tempo and tone. All the while sorting on the relevant license to use it legally.

Here are some of the sites I've gathered whilst trying to find my sound.

Royalty Free Sites
http://www.audionetwork.com/?gclid=CKLxvfji164CFc4LtAodJ1_HeQ
http://www.shockwave-sound.com/
http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/
http://www.youlicense.com/Default.aspx

A Fantasia Of Art Nouveau - Music Consideration

It's been a few days since I took up looking for composers/musicans that could be related to the Art Nouveau Movement, which proved harder than I thought. This is mostly because stating that a 'composer/musican'reflects or has attributes of Art Nouveau within their peices is more of an opinon than soild fact.

I took some time to research into this, and found a few articles that stated some artists that fall into this classification. It's very important to me that I find the right composer/piece as I want it to not only direct the timing of my animatic/previs, but contribute to my design.

Some artists for consideration, and links to back up sources.

Richard Strauss
http://www.scena.org/lsm/sm5-3/RichardStrauss-en.htm

Vitezslav Novak, Josef Suk, Mikalojus Čiurlionis
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Art+nouveau%3A+parallels+in+the+piano+music+of%3A+V.+Novak,+J.+Suk+and+M....-a0107422627

Claude Debussy
http://www.helium.com/items/1321322-claude-debussys-musical-style

Eric Satie
http://www.artsmusic.de/Music_Art_Nouveau/topic/blueline/shop_art_id/281/tpl/artsmusic_article_detail

After finding these artists, I began sifting through thier peices to find somthing that would have the right flavour for my project, which took a considerable amount of time, as I needed to take into consideration the tone/mood of my peice as well as how effective the tempo of some of these songs would be to animate to. Eventually, I narrowed it down to three pieces:

Now, apart from trying to decide which one I want, I've had to consider copyright issues, somthing I'm very unfamilliar with, after some research I've found only both Debussy and Satie fall into the public domain, due to their deaths 70+ years prior, however the recordings made of their music more presently become protected by copyright law, which is really annoying. So I've made the descion to use these songs as a 'Starting Point' for the flavours I feel work, and to begin searching for Royalty Free songs that I'm able to legally use.

List Of Public Domain Composers
http://logosfoundation.org/copyleft/public_domain_composers.html

Useful Coprigtht Sites
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
http://www.callcentrehelper.com/classical-music-on-hold-copyright-19.htm

Art Nouveau: Pre-Raphaelite Influences

I thought I'd spend some time gathering some referenced for the movement as it had a strong affinity with Art Nouveau, I feel it could help me in regards to the females that can be found in both movements, such as there poses, subject matter and most importantly compositions in their subjective pieces.

Pre-Raphaelite's had a penchant for painitng about powerful idea's, seeking to escape the confusing world around them, by turning to history, legend, myth and the constructions of women who inspired such an age.
Frequently they were quite literal about their symbolisim. Less frequently, and arguably more powerful they were subtly in their approach to symbolism, merely whispering that 'somthing important had happened to the figure in the painting.
 
Essential to the Pre-Raphaelite art is a woman's face, a beautiful visage with large, luminescent eyes set in a web of long hair. Powerful bodies, necks, or striking features usually make the "stunner," each of these women's expressions embody enigma and distance; oftentimes, their poses remain static versus active. Strange that these unearthly alluring women should sit so silently when their images literally infect the Pre-Raphaelites' body of work. Their likelinesses appear in poetry and their very faces stare out of numberless canvases. The voices and meaningful looks of these women, however, are actually the filtered versions of the men who adored and depicted them.

Their names ring familiar, the famous women who modelled for and who associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in marriage, affairs, and artistic endeavors. Agreeing to model for an artist already contained some risk to body and reputation, but to also shoulder expectations of some of these men's ideals of femme fatale, victim, or saint both in art and in life proved to be most hazardous. In art and in life, some of the Pre-Raphaelite women felt the pressure to abandon humanity to become an archetype. They were dreams coming to life in paints, and it was this living dream which the artists could not help but fall in love with.

Some of the artists associated and apart of the 'Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood':

Dante Gabriel Rossetti
John William Waterhouse
John Collier
Sir John Everett Millais