Following an interesting VI form lesson exploring the tonality of the first movement of Mozart's Piano Sonata in Bflat K.333 [during which students had to produce a coloured chart for the exposition, indicating changes of key and places where Mozart 'hinted' at other keys] - discussion moved to the question of whether or not there was a link between key and colour. That has led to this posting.
The technical name for a joining of the senses in this way is synaesthesia. Many artists and musicians have experienced this including David Hockney, Scriabin, Sir Arthur Bliss and Olivier Messiaen.
The picture above is of the Circle of 5ths arranged in a coloured version as envisaged by Scriabin - and some investigation has been done about his musical concept of colour. Sir Arthur Bliss is well known for his Colour Symphony in which each of the four movements depicts aspects of the colours purple, red, blue and green. Read about it here and listen to it here.
The celebrated French composer Olivier Messiaen was constantly striving to use colour in his music, often in a much more nuanced way than Bliss had done: imagining combinations of many colours at times. One of his impressive works is the monumental des canyons aux étoiles.
This is a fascinating area [an 'Extended Project'?] - and to see what composers have already done.
Do you 'hear' colours?
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