- Wedgebill Music

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

PUBLICATIONS
– Sheet music
– Recordings

COMPOSITION SERVICES
– Composition
– Arrangement & Orchestration
– Transcription

EDUCATION AND RESEARCH
– Tuition (piano, aural, harmony, analysis, music history)
– Analysis
– Anecdotes
– Articles, papers, and program notes
– Quotes
– Research services

COLLABORATIVE PIANO
– Accompaniment and solo performance

Latest Scores

Latest recordings

Latest anecodotes

A duet under the bed
It was in the eventful year, then, of 1813—the year of “Il Figlio per Azzardo”, with its obbligato accompaniment for lamp-shades of “Tancredi” and of “L’Italiana in Algeri”—that Rossini was… Read more: A duet under the bed
Imogen Cooper on a lesson with Alfred Brendel
He was a wonderful teacher. He is extremely articulate and very demanding. He made no concessions to my age. In my first lesson, I was playing a Schubert piano sonata,… Read more: Imogen Cooper on a lesson with Alfred Brendel
A typical recital in England in 1897
John E. Borland described in a paper of June 1897: It was customary to commence with a Bach prelude and fugue (usually perverted from one intended for the organ), a… Read more: A typical recital in England in 1897
A party piece
Irish pianist and composer George Alexander Osburn (1806-93) was a professor at the Royal Academy of Music and a director of the Philharmonic Society. One of his most popular compositions… Read more: A party piece
Rachmaninoff as a young student
From 1882, nine-year-old Rachmaninoff moved to St Petersburg to study at the conservatoire. In the comfortable knowledge that, even if he did not practice, his efforts were more successful than… Read more: Rachmaninoff as a young student

Latest Quotes

Julius Asal on interpretation
On the one hand, I believe that to connect tradition and innovation is the most important thing to me personally. On the other hand, to explore the score and be… Read more: Julius Asal on interpretation
Julius Asal on pairing Scriabin with Scarlatti
In 2024, Julius Asal released an album that interwove works of Scriabin and Scarlatti. He stated: …in finding a composer from another era who is totally different in style and… Read more: Julius Asal on pairing Scriabin with Scarlatti
Julius Asal on the exploring darker emotions
When I was younger I read a lot of Kafka and Büchner: I’ve always been drawn to the darker side of things, and I think that part of the beauty… Read more: Julius Asal on the exploring darker emotions
To burn with desire
“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.” — Federico García Lorca, Blood Wedding and Yerma A. Flores (ed.), Great… Read more: To burn with desire
Habit is stronger than willpower or inspiration
In writing, habit seems to be a stronger force than either willpower or inspiration. Consequently there must be some little quality of fierceness until the habit pattern of a certain… Read more: Habit is stronger than willpower or inspiration

Featured content

Britten on composing

“Composing is like driving down a foggy road toward a house. Slowly you see more details of the house – the colour of the slates and bricks, the shape of the windows. The notes are the bricks and mortar of the house.” – Benjamin Britten. Cited in: Jarski, Rosemarie (2005) Great British Wit. London: Ebury […]

Saint-Saens on Bach and Mozart

“What gives Sebastian Bach and Mozart a place apart is that these two great expressive composers never sacrificed form to expression. As high as their expression may soar, their musical form remains supreme and all-sufficient.” – Camille Saint-Saëns, from a letter to Camille Bellaigue, 1907 Cited in: Fisk, Josiah (ed.) (1997) Composers On Music: Eight […]

Joyous art

Art that feels like a duty is probably bad art. But most of the art industry is geared towards foisting that kind of art on us. Bad art changes over the centuries far less than we think. Today’s theory-heavy video installations are often modern equivalents of pompous and moralising Victorian paintings. It’s the joyous, uninhibited […]

In the event of a lack of singers

In a letter to his friend Abbé Joseph Bullinger, Mozart jokes about the musical environment in Salsburg. One of his subjects is the search for an additional final principle singer. “I can hardly believe it!” he wrote “A female singer!? When we have so many already! – and all of them first rate…” (1). Mozart […]

Art constructs, not deconstructs

“Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.” Simone Weil, French philosopher & mystic. Simone Weil, The Pre-War Notebook (1933-1939), published in First and Last Notebooks (1970) edited by Richard Rees.

Adequate musicians

How do you rate your music? We’re not good musicians. Just adequate. Then why are you so popular? Maybe people like adequate music. – Interviewer and the Beatles. Cited in: Jarski, Rosemarie (2005) Great British Wit. London: Ebury Press, p. 203.

First class regardless

The composer Karol Szymanowski was born into a landowning class family. Even, later in life, when short for money, he always retained the mindset of this class: At one time in Vienna, Szymanowski discovered that he did not have enough money to travel to Cracow, so some friends of him lent him the required sum. […]

‘Real’ instruments in popular music

“We’re seeing a big evolution of production, of recording techniques, and of the actual sounds. Everything’s getting sampled and synthesized…. When we do have an acoustic instrument like a saxophone, it tends to get processed to where [it’s] almost unrecognizable.” Jeff Harrington, saxophonist. Cited in, Kelsey McKinney, “Where Did All the Saxophones Go?”, https://getpocket.com/explore/item/where-did-all-the-saxophones-go?utm_source=pocket-app&utm_medium=share, accessed 29 […]

Hans Zimmer on the musical experience

Everybody tells you that the youth of today, whoever they are, have a short attention span, and you can’t give them anything decent. That’s complete crap. The youth of today, just like anyone else, like a good story and want to be transported, and to have an experience. They don’t want to be bored, so […]

Art cannot change events. But it can change people.

“The point is, art never stopped a war and never got anybody a job. That was never its function. Art cannot change events. But it can change people. It can affect people so that they are changed…because people are changed by art – enriched, ennobled, encouraged – they then act in a way that may […]