Category: Astro-music

For a conference in St.Petersburg, Peter Barthel reviewed the topic of classical music inspired by astronomy, “Astro-music”, in May 2021. The complete text of that review can be found here. An illustrated Dutch version “Hemelse klanken” was published in 2023 by Zenit magazine, and is also below.

A short film of two musicians of The Northern Consort, performing William Herschel’s (1769) Sonata in C, in the (1781) Eisinga Planetarium in Franeker, The Netherlands. Peter Barthel produced this film on the occasion of the planetarium receiving UNESCO World Heritage status, in September 2023. A short trailer of the film can be found on the planetarium website; the full film is available on YouTube.

Peter Barthel is collaborating with Italian pianist Marco Rapetti. In 2021 they released a filmed live performance of Scriabin’s Fourth Piano Sonata, opus 30, “illustrated” with astronomical images and video. Pianist Rapetti performs the work on Albert Einstein’s 1899 Blüthner piano which is housed in the astronomical observatory in Florence, Italy.

In 2022 a spectacular filmed studio performance of Scriabin’s Vers la flamme, opus 72, followed. Both short films can be viewed here.

Starting in 2008, Peter Barthel collaborates with the Grieg Pianoduo, Elles van der Heiden and Siebert Nix, in a project combining 4-hand piano music with astronomy video.

The collaboration featured a world premiere in september 2009, of a new work “The Sombrero Galaxy”, composed for the Grieg duo and Barthel, by Estonian composer Urmas Sisask, for which the composer used Barthel’s Sombrero poster as inspiration. More information can be found in the article on p.16/17 of the July 2011 issue of the Journal “Communicating Astronomy to the Public”. A recent studio performance of “The Sombrero galaxy” can be viewed here.