Musicologica Olomucensia vol. 37(1), (2025):162-205 | DOI: 10.5507/mo.2025.017

Correspondences: Music Inspired by Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night

Małgorzata Pawłowska
The Krzysztof Penderecki Academy of Music in Krakow, Poland

This article presents the conclusions of a comparative analysis and interpretation of musical works inspired by Vincent van Gogh’s painting Starry Night, created over the last half-century, along with reflections on the similarities resulting from a common source of inspiration. These works include Henri Dutilleux’s Timbres, Espace, Mouvement ou La Nuit étoilée and Correspondances, mov. V: De Vincent à Theo; Einojuhani Rautavaara’s opera Vincent and Symphony No. 6 Vincentiana, mov. I: Starry Night; George Crumb’s Starry Night from Metamorphoses (Book II) and the song Shenandoah from The Winds of Destiny; as well as pieces by Matthew Harris, Alan Hovhaness, and Alla Pavlova. On the one hand, they are considered – together with van Gogh’s painting – on a higher, transmedial level as manifesting an archetype of the cosmic night, as an expression of the “poetic imagination” (Bachelard), evoking a certain atmosphere (Böhme). On the other hand, the musical works are viewed from the perspective of intermedial transposition (Wolf, Rajevsky), in which elements of content and structure are transferred from the painting to music. The “correspondences” that the article aims to explore are on multiple levels: between the painting and musical works, between different musical works, between life and work, between van Gogh’s views as expressed in his correspondences and the painting’s possible interpretations and, finally, between the composers’ reflections and their music.

Keywords: Dutilleux; Rautavaara; Crumb; Harris; Hovhaness; Pavlova; Van Gogh; Starry Night; intermedial transposition; transmediality; music analysis and interpretation; musical hermeneutics; painting and music; Böhme

Accepted: February 27, 2026; Published: May 30, 2025  Show citation

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Pawłowska, M. (2025). Correspondences: Music Inspired by Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night. Musicologica Olomucensia, 37(1), 162-205. doi: 10.5507/mo.2025.017
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