Welcome to Wedgebill Music, the home page of Greg Smith, Australian composer and pianist.

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Featured content

Mozart on aesthetics
Mozart’s musical aesthetics are revealed in a letter to his father about Osmin’s first aria in The Abduction of the Seraglio (Die Entführung aus dem Serail).  The Eighteenth century classical ideals of balance and refinement are evident: I have sent you only the beginning and the end of the aria.  I think it will prove […]
Success is a staircase
“Success is not a doorway, it’s a staircase.” — Dottie Walters
Rehearsal conditions must be suitable
Strengthened by his initial triumph and by daily evidences of the ever-mounting appreciation and support of the Philadelphia’s new claim to artistic fame, Stokowski tried once again to convince the board that first-class musical results were impossible unless the orchestra rehearsed exactly where they performed.  The men engrossed in the financial problems of balancing budgets […]
The role of an interpreter
The interpreter is really an executant, carrying out the composer’s intentions to the letter. He doesn’t add anything that isn’t already in the work. If he is talented, he allows us to glimpse the truth of the work that is in itself a thing of genius and that is reflected in him. He shouldn’t dominate […]
Debussy on Metronome markings
You know what I think about metronome marks: they’re right for a single bar, like “roses, with a morning life”. Only there are “those” who don’t hear music and who take these marks as authority to hear it still less! But do what you please. — Debussy, Letter to Jacques Durand of 9 October 1915 […]
I do not choose my listeners
“I do not choose my listeners. What I mean is, I never write for my listeners. I think about my audience, but I am not writing for them. I have something to tell them, but the audience must also put a certain effort into it. But I never wrote for an audience and never will […]
Wagner’s observations on the English and oratorios
Wagner attended a performance of Messiah at Exeter Hall in London with a chorus of 700 voices. He recorded in his autobiography: It is here that I came to understand the true spirit of English Protestantism. This accounts for the fact that an oratorio attracts the public far more than an opera. A further advantage […]
Be With Me, Lord, When I Am In Trouble (Setting II) – Psalm 90 (91)
Title: Be with me, Lord, when I am in trouble (setting ii) Text: Psalm 90 (91): 1-2, 10-15. R. v.15 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: SATB score and partSAMPLE:
Stokowski’s first rehearsal with the Philadelphia Orchestra
On Stokowski’s first rehearsal with the Philadelphia Orchestra: From Oscar Schwar, a fellow faculty member at Curtis who became my friend, I heard the details of Stokowski’s first contact with the orchestra.  He would never forget, he said, that Monday morning of October 7, 1912, when an amazingly young and handsome Stokowski, wearing a light […]
The Blue Danube (Strauss)
Title: The Blue Danube (op. 314) Composer: Johann Strauss Arranger: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Cello and piano Product medium: PDF score and part (32 pages) Sample: