Toccata

Toccata is one of my earliest works, and also one of the largest canvases I have ever attempted. It was started and completed on a dreary winter Saturday in 1994 and hasn’t really been touched much since. While I love it conceptually, I’ve never been completely satisfied with the execution of it.

Toccata was an attempt to paint a piece of music, a seven and a half minute instrumental by the same name based on the Fourth Movement of Alberto Ginastera’s 1st Piano Concerto, arranged by Keith Emerson and performed by Emerson Lake and Palmer. It’s a very complex, meandering, experimental track, morphing from dramatically violent passages to calm spacey sections, and even featuring an epic drum solo. I listened to it on repeat while painting until the batteries ran out on my discman, then took a break for lunch, bought new batteries, and went back to listening to it until I was done late at night. I started with a very violent and explosive underpainting, in synch with the music. As I refined it, I inserted elements that I was hearing.

When it was critiqued by my class, the critique was particularly contentious. I was attacked on the grounds that a depiction of music shouldn’t have recognizable forms but should be more abstract. I countered that recognizable sounds instantly conjure up recognizable forms, and my piece of music was rife with them. I don’t think the consensus was with me, and I remember leaving that critique feeling like I might just paint over it. I’m glad I didn’t. Regardless of its flaws, I do think Toccata is a particularly affecting piece of mine, and it’s probably the piece that I’ve heard more people cite as their favorite of my works.