From Roma to Baroque: Madeleine Mitchell on the Red Violin Festival

Dufy’s The Red Violin

Next week, the violinist Madeleine Mitchell is set to resurrect her Red Violin Festival, a celebration of the violin in its many guises from Roma to Indian, baroque to contemporary – this time in Leeds. In this blog she describes how the violin has provided inspiration to artists, photographers, filmmakers and writers, from Man Ray to Picasso, Yeats to Francois Girard and beyond.

It was paintings of red violins by Pougny (1919) and Dufy (1948) which gave rise to the title of the festival I dreamt up in 1997 – The Red Violin, with Lord Menuhin as Founder Patron, celebrating the violin across the arts. I’ve been a violinist throughout my career but I also love art and am a great believer in the cross fertilization and interrelation of the arts. My mother was an amateur artist and pianist and I used to collect cards of violin paintings. It’s fascinating that the violin has inspired not only composers, but writers and so many great artists, especially in the early 20th century, who created violin paintings. Picasso made 50 works of art featuring violin; Matisse and Klee (who both also played the violin), Braque, Gris, Chagall, Dali and many others. I think the shape appealed to the cubists. There’s even a restaurant in Paris called ‘Le Violon D’Ingres’ after Man Ray’s famous photo image.

The evocative sound of the violin, closest to the human voice, makes it so expressive, giving it a special allure. The fiddle crosses all boundaries and has been associated with devils and angels alike. One thinks of the classical paintings of angels playing violins. The Soldier’s Tale, L’Histoire du Soldat (1918) with music by Igor Stravinsky and a libretto by Charles Ramuz is the Faustian tale of the soldier who sells his soul, represented by the violin, to the devil.

Being such a versatile instrument which you can take with you, it’s been taken up by Roma musicians, folk musicians, Indian violinists as well as being the foundation of the orchestra and backing tracks for countless songs and movies.
Stradivarius is a household name – anybody would know it – and the provenance, the history of who’s
played on an instrument over the centuries is intriguing.

This is what inspired François Girard in his Red Violin film (which came out in 1998, the year after my first festival), tracing the instrument from the hands of its maker through the centuries, including the Chinese Cultural Revolution to a sales room, with a
soundtrack by the American composer John Corigliano. We’re bringing this alive with performances of the composer’s Red Violin Caprices performed prior to the film screenings at the festival, at The
Everyman Cinema.

The great poet WB Yeats wrote: ‘When I play on my fiddle in Dooney, Folk dance like a wave of the sea’. James B.Wilson’s brand new piece for violin and piano My Love is Sleeping (premiered 18.10), is inspired by the WH Auden poem.
Where great violinists played is also interesting – who would have thought that the great 19th century virtuosi Paganini, Sarasate and Joachim played in Leeds?! Dr Rachael Unsworth of Leeds City Walking Tours will take us on a two hour guided walk of the city’s landmarks, accompanied by a specially curated violin soundtrack (17.10 afternoon)

That evening my group, the London Chamber Ensemble have been invited to give the European premiere of Intonations: Songs from the Violins of Hope by American composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer – a renowned partnership. The texts are based, in part, on the book by James A. Grymes: The Violins of Hope: Violins of the Holocaust – Instruments of Hope and Liberation in mankind’s Darkest Hour. These violins saved lives because those who could play well were able to play in the orchestra.

In our increasingly visual, image-conscious world, it’s fun to find striking art for album covers. For the London Chamber Ensemble I was able to use a wintery watercolour by Edward Vulliamy for the cover of William Alwyn Chamber Music and Songs including Winter Poems (which has had over 250,000 plays on spotify!) For Grace Williams Chamber Music I found a vivid painting of Barry docks, near the home of the composer; the artist was delighted to be featured and Naxos were keen to have my late mother’s painting of violins for last year’s Violin Conversations. It was with great delight that I discovered the beautiful painting In Gloucestershire by Harold Gilman (1916) in the Leeds Art Gallery for the cover of our latest album Howells and Wood Quartets with the eponymous opening work by Herbert Howells (launched at the Red Violin festival 17.10).

In the previous festival we got children to paint their own red violins and exhibited them all at the Wales Millennium Centre and this year some of the children from In Harmony Opera North will also paint their own pictures of violins.

At the Royal College of Music I’ve taught a ‘Practical Skills’ course including improvising to pictures so I would speak to the students about the similarities and differences between say a colourful abstract work by Kandinsky and music – the composition, colour, rhythm. It enriches their understanding of music, giving them another perspective and sparking their imagination. It just shows how the arts can nourish each other.

The Red Violin festival takes place from October 14th-19th throughout Leeds in concerts, walking tours, film, talks and a flashmob. www.redviolin.co.uk