Richters Patterns @Hollandfestival: Traffic light jumps to red, traffic light jumps to green

Music and images, it remains a tricky combination. Do you see a picture with music, or do you hear music with a picture? That question was not answered unequivocally at the opening concert of the Holland Festival. The slowly changing colours of Gerhard Richter's canvases were matched by Marcus Schmickler's slowly fading sounds. While Richters Patterns soon became bored, the almost 50 years older Rothko Chapel by Morton Feldman captivates.

Brave for the Holland Festival to place two such minimalist works side by side as an opening. On paper, it was Richters Patterns an exciting choice. Gerhard Richter took photographs of cut-outs of his own works in 2016. Director Corinna Belz generated 60,000 images from these using computer algorithms, which were edited into moving images by editor Rudi Heinen. The ornamental patterns become increasingly sophisticated and eventually culminate in fast-moving horizontal stripes.

Visual rhythm

Richter is praised for the strong visual rhythm of his abstract paintings. For years, he dreamed of a synthesis between visual art and modern music and this seemed the ideal opportunity. Parallel to the film, the also German composer Marcus Schmickler wrote the music. Loudly, he 'makes audible the visual pulse that emerges from the animation of the footage'. Film and composition follow their own logic, 'creating deliberate friction between image and sound'.

However, the promise that we were going to 'look at music and listen to paintings' was not fulfilled. Sure, it is wonderful how Richter's bright hues and ornamental patterns constantly transform and take on different light intensities. But the sustained tones of the surrounding musicians in the Gashouder offer no rebuttal. Instead, they follow exactly the same slow tempo, melting into a high-pile carpet of sound.

What you see is what you get

Short motifs of harp and electric piano mirror the angular Art Deco patterns emerging from Richter's masses of colour. When his strokes dance wildly through each other, the musicians produce a loud cacophony of sounds. What you see is what you get. Due to the persistent one-to-one relationship between music and images, boredom and indifference strike. 'In Almelo there is always something to do, the traffic light jumps to red, the traffic light jumps to green.' These lines of poetry by Herman Finkers irrevocably forced themselves on me.

Schmickler (b. 1968) was far outclassed by his colleague Morton Feldman, who died in 1987. Although the American too deploys sparse, elongated sounds, he creates in Rothko Chapel an exciting, ritualistic whole. He composed it in 1971 for the ecumenical chapel of the same name in Houston Texas. It was built on the instructions of Mark Rothko, who covered the walls with layered, black paintings.

Spiritual atmosphere

Rothko Chapel piece is set in motion by restrained, beautifully wafting sounds of a viola in space. Axel Porath of Ensemble Musikfabrik plays his elegiac melodies with concentration and sensitivity. Dirk Rothbrust enhances the spiritual atmosphere with gently rumbling timpani, shrouded woodblocks and buzzing xylophone sounds. Ulrich Löffler adds a heavenly layer with ultra-soft tinkling on his celesta - listed as piano in the programme book.

Daniel Reuss leads his men through this magical composition with great precision. The singers of Capella Amsterdam set their wordless phrases almost inaudibly and let them die away just as silently. Just as Rothko gave relief to his black canvases with various strokes and highlights of other dark colours, they create a layered landscape of gently buzzing, overtone-rich harmonies. The hushed piece concludes with a repeating three-note motif from the xylophone. A dissolving into nothingness of the choir's harmonies encompasses us in comforting basking.

Experiment

The performance by Cappella Amsterdam was flawless and intense. Incomprehensible that this top choir has been thrown out of its multi-year subsidy by the Performing Arts Fund. The musicians of ensemble Musikfabrik also played fantastically. It wasn't down to them that instead of Richters Patterns would rather have heard a repeat of Rothko Chapel.

To its credit, the Holland festival dared to undertake this experiment. Too bad it reaffirmed that the combination of image and music rarely adds value.