Alexander Gow, musician in the band Oh Mercy on spontaneity of artistic creation: [Spontaneity is] when art is expression, and that’s what I’m interested in. If, like you said, there’s a spontaneity to it and it’s an extension of a certain kind of moment or feeling, and if you’re clever enough to express that through […]

Bach, a master of harmony and counterpoint, would not settle for imperfect sounds, no matter where he was.  Johann Reichardt recalled: Johann Sebastian Bach once came into a large company while a musical amateur was sitting and improvising at a harpsichord.  The moment the latter became aware of the presence of the great master, he […]

“What greater pleasure is there is life than giving young and beautiful talent a little lift in the direction of the stars though they will never reach them.” Sir Clifford Curzon – English pianist Pianist, No. 59, April-May 2011, Warner Group publications, p.10.

Schubert’s report card in in the Music of the Court Chapel Choir-Boys in the I. & R. Seminary, 1st term, 1809: Name Morals Studies Singing Pianoforte Violin Remarks Schubert Franz v. good good v. good good v. good A musical talent Report card for the Scholars of the First Grammar Class at the University Preparatory […]

“You don’t get harmony when everybody sings the same note.” Doug Floyd, editorial editor of The Spokesman Review

American pianist Seymour Lipkin, a student of Rudolf Serkin recalled a performance of Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata Back in the 1970s I gave a recital at Curtis at Mr. Serkin’s invitation.  I was playing the Hammerklavier in those years.  Why, in my right mind … I should never have … but I did.  There, sitting in […]

Title: I am the Lord, your God. Text: Psalm 80 (81): 10-11ab, 12-13, 14-15 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part Sample:

Rodney Greenberg describes a side of George Gershwin’s “romantic side”: He wrote a little waltz-song, which he would sing and play to his current dating partner.  It was, in effect, what his friend Kitty Carlisle (who later married playwright Moss Hart) described as his “mating call”, because he left a blank space in the lyrics […]

In 1853, Brahms went on a tour of German cities with the Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi.  In the town of Celle, they were scheduled to play Beethoven’s Sonata in c minor (op. 30, no. 2): but it was found that the piano in the hall was tuned a half tone too low.  Reményi refused to […]

I feel like a ghost wandering in a world grown alien. I cannot cast out the old way of writing, and I cannot acquire the new. I have made intense effort to feel the musical manner of today, but it will not come to me. Unlike Madame Butterfly with her quick religious conversion, I cannot […]