About the creation

The title refers to the book of paper cutouts that the painter Henry Matisse published in 1946 and which contains, in between the rhythmic and colorful plates, text hand-written by the artist himself. He intended this text (brush painted) to ease the emotional tension the pictures create in the reader. The texts themselves – as marginal as they may seem – express somewhat prosaically the same poetic atmosphere that inspires the paper cutouts.

In my work I tried to create sound – pictures in sharp and variegated colors, almost of graphic and visual quality. My sound-pictures are set within a continuous musical prose which develops from being enigmatic and blurred to the point where its shape is revealed as the inclination towards primary rhythmic perception in the spirit of "swing".

Throughout, as if in reaction to the irresistible pull of the basic rhythm, a musical pattern emerges in various guises from the deep lower register. This pattern leads toward the various 'pictures' as a kind of musical-graphic metaphor.

Towards the end of the piece, rather like the "contents" page in Matisse's book, there is a short recapitulation of all the 'pictures' in the composition, a mosaic-like impression which reinforces their plastic aspect and underscores their divergence from all musical processes developing in time.

Ruben Seroussi