Synaesthesia – a neurological condition in which one sense triggers another to stimulate an additional sensory response – has often been associated with certain composers and pieces. Many of us may seem to ‘hear’ a certain colour while listening to a particular work. Here are eight composers who really did hear music in colour.
Eight composers with synaesthesia
1. Olivier Messiaen
A colourful composer in every sense, the great French composer Olivier Messiaen once tried to describe his sensory skill, stating ‘I see colours when I hear sounds, but I don’t see colours with my eyes. I see colours intellectually, in my head.’
Messiaen’s particular strain of synaesthesia can more acccurately be labelled chromesthesia – meaning that he would see specific colours when he heard particular musical chords or scales. No surprise, then, that Messiaen‘s own music is full of vivid colours. For example, in his masterpiece Turangalîla-Symphonie, Messiaen described certain harmonies as evoking specific colour tones such as ‘greenish gold’ or ‘blue-orange’.
For an example of Messiaen in synaesthetic mode, try 1963’s Couleurs de la Cité Céleste for piano and small orchestra, in which Messiaen expresses in music a vision of ‘the light of the city (…) like crystalline jasper’.
2. Alexander Scriabin
Russian composer Alexander Scriabin is perhaps one of the most famous examples of synaesthetic composers. Given this, it’s somewhat ironic that Scriabin’s own particular version of synaesthesia may have been more theoretical, or philosophical, than physically experienced.
Whatever the root cause, Scriabin took the experience of synaesthesia very seriously. He created his own musical system where he linked musical keys to specific colours. This esoteric approach culminated in works like Prometheus: The Poem of Fire, which included a ‘colour organ’ that would project different colours in accordance with the music being performed.
Scriabin believed that music and colour could merge into a single, transcendent experience. This was just one part of his complex worldview and musical aesthetic, which drew on philosophies and belief systems including theosophy and Eastern mysticism. It all culminated in his unrealised plans for the Mysterium, a vast, all-embracing work of art and music to be performed in a purpose-built temple in the Himalayas.
3. Jean Sibelius
Finland’s greatest composer, Jean Sibelius was apparently very much a multi-synaesthete, in that he claimed to also hear sounds in his mind when he saw colours or objects, or even smelled certain scents. Perhaps he truly heard the sound of silence…
He described his creative process as being influenced by color sensations. Sibelius spoke of hearing music in terms of shapes and colors, which helped him in structuring his symphonies and orchestral works. Intriguing indeed: to us, ‘The Swan of Tounela’ has a dark velvety brown colour, while Symphony No. 6 is a pale silver and No. 5 a warm, summery yellow-orange.
4. György Ligeti
The fascinating 20th-century Hungarian composer György Ligeti was quite open about his synaesthesia, stating that 'Major chords are red or pink, minor chords are somewhere between green and brown.' He claimed to also have the ability to see numbers as colours.
Ligeti didn't just see colours in music, however. He was also able to visualise music in a spatial or geometrical sense, with certain sounds appearing as textures, shapes, or forms. He often spoke of his music in terms of abstract geometries, and this synaesthetic sense of form influenced his complex sound clusters and some of his more avant-garde compositions such as Atmosphères and Lux Aeterna.
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5. Franz Liszt
Onto Franz Liszt, the 19th-century Hungarian virtuoso pianist, composer and father of the piano recital. Liszt is sometimes thought to have had synaesthesia, though historical records are less clear.
It’s said that the composer would speak to musicians in terms of the colours they needed to achieve in their performances, and is quoted as giving directions such as “A little bluer, if you please! This tone type requires it!” Given all we know about Liszt - his freewheeling Romanticism, his boundless energy, his keen interest in the esoteric - some form of synaesthesia seems entirely in keeping with this most fascinating composer.
6. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Russian composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov is another who is thought to have experienced synaesthesia. In his case, he would associate specific keys with particular colours. For example, Rimsky-Korsakov described C major as white, D major as yellow, and E-flat major as dark blue. He reportedly clashed with fellow composer (and possible fellow synaesthete) Alexander Scriabin over their differing music-and-colour associations.
Again, it totally figures that Rimsky-Korsakov experienced synaesthesia. We often talk about orchestral colours - how the different instruments of the orchestra can provide widely varied sound effects and evoke different atmospheres - and Rimsky's music is among the most colourful of them all. You can just feel the exoticism breathing out of Scheherazade, for example.
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7. Leonard Bernstein
Revered American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein is said to have experienced a form of synaesthesia. We can't say for sure whether this was of the full-blooded strand that affected the likes of Olivier Messiaen above, but reports say that Bernstein visualized music with a heightened sensitivity to both colour and shape, influencing his musical expressiveness and his eclectic style.
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Watch Bernstein conducting Mahler below, and it's not hard to see that this was someone who lived the music through every pore!
8. Duke Ellington
Legendary jazz composer and pianist Duke Ellington was another one who is alleged to have seen colour in sounds. Ellington is known to have described the connections he sensed between different instruments and musical tones, and specific colours on the spectrum.
For instance, Ellington once noted that a D note sounded 'dark blue' to him. This unique sense of colour may well have influenced the rich tonal palette of his own jazz compositions, as well as contributing to his many gifts as one of the greatest jazz band leaders the world has ever seen.
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