These really are extraordinary works. Frisell plays the classicist. His jazz roots are the underpinning, but the compositions defer strictly to late 20th century classical “New Music”. Frisell is no stranger to that world. In 1995 he World premiered Steven Mackey’s “Deal” with the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s New Music Group as part of the Green Umbrella concert series, a legacy of Esa-Pekka Salonen, music director and principle conductor for the Los Angeles Philharmonic from 1992 to 2009.

It is interesting to note that Richter 858 pre-dates The Tristan Project, another phenomenal pairing of “Art” (Bill Viola) and composition (Richard Wagner). And while The Tristan Project is firmly embedded in both the pioneering worlds of video art and chromatic opera, Richter 858 feels the more ground breaking by making an associative leap from the static to the fluid. Frisell delivers a classical infrastructure with big emotional bearing. He is able to not only extract the “character” of the paintings, but delivers in each composition an emblematic portrait, all strung together, tightly knotted and sitting pretty like Jackie Kennedy’s pearls. I have a particular fondness for 858-6. Very dramatic and very satisfying.

Notes are from Richter 858: Outline re: Structure, Aesthetics, Questions, Thoughts by producer David Breskin.

858-5
Abstract Picture, 1999
Oil on aluminum, 50×72 cm

In all case’s, musical choices are “motivated” by visual stimuli, however vague and ineffable and mysterious those motivations happen to be. The idea is to use the paintings as not just “inspiration” but “motivation”: I believe that the deeper and more intimately involved you are with looking, the more perfect will be the relationship between your music and Richter’s paintings.

858-6
Abstract Picture, 1999
Oil on aluminum, 50×72 cm

The music should deal with the idea of “The Series”: that is closely linked pieces, painted/composed (executed/performed) at the same time, with consistent applications and modes of making. The music should have some narrative or relational sense-however abstract. A sense of story, development, layering, beginning, ending: one thing in relation to the other.

858-7
Abstract Picture, 1999
Oil on aluminum, 50×72 cm

The pictures have their own speeds. Their own velocities. Their own frequencies. The music in some way could/should deal with this. Richter paints to music – no surprise when you look at his work. There are a lot of rhythmic things happening in the paintings. The music should respect these speeds and rhythms, but not slavishly so.

858-8
Abstract Picture, 1999
Oil on linen, 51×747 cm

I expect the music will delve deep into the language of Electric Guitar. These are shimmery “electric” paintings. They hold, bury, mix, and reveal a lot of visual nose – beautiful, aching, sweet, painful noise. In some ways you could say they are creations of different kinds if coloristic and structural noise, coming together to create an unusual composition, which – almost against its will – reveals beautiful melodies and harmonic cohesion.

RICHTER 858, published by The Shifting Foundation/SFMOMA (San Francisco 2002), ISBN 0-9718610-0-5 In 2002

Richter 858 is an extraordinary collaboration between the painter Gerhard Richter and musician/jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, first released on CD as part of the limited edtion book RICHTER 858, published by The Shifting Foundation/SFMOMA (San Francisco 2002), ISBN 0-9718610-0-5

In 2002 Bill Frisell was commissioned by producer/poet David Breskin to create the music for an elaborate art book project on the great German painter Gerhard Richter. The book, RICHTER 858, was published in connection with a comprehensive US retrospective of Richter’s work, although it focused entirely on a recent series of eight small abstract paintings numbered 858 1–8. There were poems, essays, superb reproductions of the works, and Frisell’s music on an inserted CD — one piece for each painting.

Here is the music paired each with its accompanying painting. Notes are from Richter 858: Outline re: Structure, Aesthetics, Questions, Thoughts by producer David Breskin.
The opening of the first track, 858-1, is very aggressive. Stick with it. The rewards are great.

858-1
Abstract Picture, 1999
Oil on aluminum, 50×72 cm

There should be eight distinct pieces of music, each having a 1:1 relationship to the painting which serves as its “trigger”. Repeated motifs and/ or structures shared by a number of pieces are perfectly acceptable, indeed natural, as there are such motifs and structures shared by certain of the paintings.

858-2
Abstract Picture, 1999
Oil on aluminum, 50×72 cm

The main eight pieces may be roughly the same length as each other, but also are perfectly free to be very different lengths. Your reaction to the paintings will be wholly subjective and personal. One painting may simply not “ask you” for as much exploration and development as another.

858-3
Abstract Picture, 1999
Oil on aluminum, 50×72 cm

This is a natural tendency and should not be fought. While it is true that the first seven paintings are all exactly the same size and created with similar means, duration in music is not necessarily analogous to scale in the visual arts.

858-4
Abstract Picture, 1999
Oil on aluminum, 50×72 cm

Likewise, in music, one would never confuse duration with significance any more than one would dare to value a huge Julian Schnable painting over a tiny Vermeer simply because of size. Given you full freedoms in this dimension, it may still be your wish to explore the idea of uniformity between paintings.