The inexpressible depth of all music, by virtue of which it floats past us as a paradise quite familiar and yet eternally remote, and is so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain.
Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher
A. Schopenhaurer, The World as Will and Representation, Translated by E. F. J. Payne, Vol. 1, United States, Dover Publications, 1969, p. 264.
The inexpressible depth of music
by
Tags:
Featured Content
Parry on choral music
Hubert Parry, who taught Vaughan Williams composition, instructed the composer to “write choral music as befits and Englishman and a democrat.” Vaughan Williams recalled that “this attitude to art led to an almost moral hated of mere luscious sound…” Vaughan Williams, cited in Holmes, Paul (1997) Vaughan Williams. London: Omnibus Press, p.17.
Jan Lisiecki on interpretationMy approach is to sit with the score and make my decisions about what Andante means or what piano means in a certain context; often you go back to recordings and find that nobody’s ever really played it that way. You ask yourself ‘Why is that? Did I misread or misinterpret something? Or is this […]
They who dream“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” — Edgar Allan Poe
A replacement conductorThe following appeared in the Musical Times, August 1890: We read that “a Saxon engineer has invented an automatic machine, the object of which is to save conductors the physical part of their duties. By pressing a button the apparatus, which is provided with an arm holding a conducting-stick, can be made to beat with the […]
Silence, slowness, clarity, reinvigorate“No matter if you’re an artist, a desk jockey, or anything in between – give yourself permission to include regular (dare I say daily?) reinvigoration in your work ethic. Silence. Slowness. Clarity. The machine doesn’t work so well without them.” Kim Pensinger, from Living and Singing on Interest in the WTO Blog
Inspiration exists“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” -Pablo Picasso Cited at WikiQuote
That which precedes success“I continue to find my greatest pleasure, and so my reward, in the work that precedes what the world calls success.” — Thomas Edison, American inventor A. R. Calhoun How to Get On in the World; or, a Ladder to Pratical Success, New York, 1895, p.137. Digitally archived at: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/20608/pg20608.html, accessed 18 September 2021.
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 […]
Never use a scoreI never use a score when conducting my orchestra. Does a lion tamer enter a cage with a book on how to tame a lion? — Dimitri Mitropoulos, conductor Zographos, Achilleas (2017) Music and Chess. Milford: Russell Enterprises Inc.
CompositionGREG SMITH Composer, arranger, and pianist Greg Smith is an Australian composer and pianist based in New South Wales. Greg majored in piano and composition at The University of Newcastle, completing a Bachelor of Music with first-class honours with a university medal in 2001. He completed a Master of Creative Arts in piano performance, studying […]