Bassoon

Herr Richter, the pianist, is going on a tour that will take him back to Holland, his native country – I have given him a letter introductionto the Countess Thun at Linz. – He also wishes to visit Salzbourg, so I gave him a 4-line note for you, my dearest father … He plays well […]

O, how wonderful is the human voice! It is indeed the organ of the soul! The intellect of man sits enthroned visibly upon his forehead and in his eye; and the heart of man is written uponhis countenance. But the soul reveals itself in the voice only; as God revealed himself to the prophet of […]

Nadyezhda Filaretovna von Meck was Tchaikovsky’s patroness.  In March 1877 she wrote of the effect of Tchaikovsky’s music on her.  The work being described is a Marche Funèbre on a theme from Oprichnik (this work is now lost).    It is so superb that, as I had hoped, it elevates and transports me into a […]

We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel—or have done and thought and felt; or might do and think and feel—is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become. A person who had never known another human […]

Title: The Lord has revealed to all nations his saving power (Setting ii) Text: Psalm 97 (98): 1-4. R. cf. v.2 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part Sample:

Life is made up of little things. It is very rarely that an occasion is offered for doing a great deal at once. True greatness consists in being great in little things. – Charles Simmons (1852) A Laconic Manual and Brief Remarker: Containing Over a Thousand Subjects.  North Wrentham: Charles Simmons, p. 315.  Digitally archived […]

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 […]

“There is no one giant step that does it. It’s a lot of little steps.” — Peter A. Cohen Ford Saeks, Superpower!  How to Think, Act, and Perform with Less Effort and Better Results, New Jersey, John Wiley & Sons, 2012, p. 198

“It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet