Music for Jakob Weidemann's Illustrations for the Christmas Story According to Luke
In 1991, Norwegian modernist painter Jakob Weidemann illustrated the Christmas Story According to Luke in twelve minimal and humble paintings, using both cardboard and fabric from hessian sacks as canvas.
In 2017 I used an online application called Pixelsynth to convert these twelve paintings into sound that I then used to craft a piece of music for each painting, mostly using a technique commonly referred to as "granular synthesis". The result is an abstract and broad-brushed hommage to one of Norway's most important post-war painter's depiction of the most popular biblical christmas story.
Tracklist with time tags:
(disclaimer: These are not the titles for the actual paintings)
00:00 - 1. A decree from Caesar Augustus
03:17 - 2. Joseph
05:30 - 3. Mary
07:52 - 4. And she wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in
a manger
10:25 - 5. The sheperds
12:35 - 6. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them
15:18 - 7. The baby in the manger is Christ the Lord
17:53 - 8. A multitude of the heavenly host
20:50 - 9. The sheperds go to Betlehem
23:20 -10. Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her
heart
26:20 -11. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God
29:20 -12. His name was called JESUS