Brahms’ harmonic exerciseIt was during the summer of 1858 that Brahms met Agathe von Seibold. He had gone to visit Ise Grimm at Göttingenm the university town where Joachim spent his holidays. Ise had recently married, and his home was a meeting place for the younger musicians. I have invited some people in this evening,” he told […]
Against GregorianIn Anglican England in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, there was considerable opposition to the Roman Catholic Gregorian chant. The Parish Choir or Church Music Book, published by the Society for the Promoting of Church Music (October 1847), applauds those who “deal heavy blows at Romanism and every other form of dissent.” (1) Part […]
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 […]
Liberation from formalism“The present time has to a great extent liberated itself from symphonic form – from formalism. This started when the concert halls became empty, because that form has nothing to do with human beings. I believe that the present time is progressing.” Jean Sibelius, to Jussi Jalas, 17th July 1946 Cited at: www.sibelius.fi [accessed 31 […]
The forgotten aspect of music“One of things that’s been forgotten in music for a long time is the ability to be nakedly emotional”. David Lang, composer Cited in “When Opera Is New and Unproved”, Anne Midgette, The Washington Post, 7 September 2008.
Dreaming of FigaroBy 1790, Haydn has become dissatisfied with life at Eszterhaza. On 9th February he wrote: Well! I sit in my wilderness; forsaken, like some poor orphan, almost without human society; melancholy, dwelling on the memory of past glorious days. Yes; past, alas! And who can tell when these happy hours may return? Those charming meetings? […]
Learn my nameStokowski’s ability to inspire musicians was sometimes balanced by the ability to turn them off. Saidenberg altered me to a remarkable violinist who quit the Philadelphia Orchestra and went on to become America’s greatest authority on constitutional law. “Raoul Berger was a wonderful violinist in the Philadelphia Orchestra. One day at rehearsal, Stoki stopped the […]
Musical taste in England in 1925A general perspective of musical taste in Britain in the 1920s can be seen in the letters to radio broadcasters. In 1926, the B.B.C. (at that time, the British Broadcasting Company) (1) compiled correspondence to the company. In the week ending December 4, of the 7600 letters received, 302 were critical: 125 condemned dance music […]
Maurice Ravel: Menuet sur le dom d’Haydn; Menuet Antique; Pavane pour une infante défunte; SonatineRavel’s style — elegant, and refined — was highly influenced by eighteenth classicism (e.g., Mozart) and the early French keyboard composers (e.g., Couperin). Stravinsky once described Ravel as a “Swiss watchmaker”, due to Ravel’s attention to detail. Ravel wrote: “I never put down a work until I have made absolutely certain that there is nothing […]
Schumann on Chopin’s styleChopin can hardly write anything now but that we feel like calling out in the seventh or eighth measure, “It is by him!” – Robert Schumann, 1838 P. Kildea, Chopin’s Piano, London, Allen Lane, 2018, p. 43.
