“Tchaikovsky reminded me, in more ways than one, of his countryman Tourgéniew, whom I once met at Madame Viardot’s. He had none of the Northern roughness, was as polished as a Frenchman in his manner, and had something of the Italian in his temperament… For all the belief which he had in himself, he was […]

“Improvisation is too good to leave to chance.” -Paul Simon, singer & composer Cited at Aphorism.ru. Accessed 31 March 2013. 

Samuel Sebastian Wesley received great reviews for his conding at Gloucester’s annual Three Choir Festivals in 1865. An critic in The Musical Times wrote in the October issue: We have said nothing of the orchestra during these performances, for in truth the perfect manner in which the whole of the instrumental portions of the works […]

Title: Musing by Moonlight Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Duet Level: Piano I – level I (5 finger position, left and right hands) Product medium: PDF score & MP3 accompaniment track (Audio sample of accompaniment track only)

What is pertinent is the calmness of that beauty, its sense of restraint. It is as though the land knows of its own beauty, of its own greatness, and feels no need to shout it.” – Kazuo Ishiguro

The Polish composer Karol Szymanowski wrote of the French composer Maurice Ravel in 1925: Whether he writes a “Rapsodie espagnole”, “Mélodies grecques”, or the almost Viennese “La Valse”, he always remains one of the foremost fascinating representatives of the genius of his race.  He assembles all the fundamental elements of that most beautiful culture in […]

After a year’s sabbatical in 1953, the pianist Horowitz found a routine and rebuilt his technique: I realized I had to work out new daily schedules for myself – so much time for study, for rest, for reflection, for exercise … Soon my days had a new rhythm, a new serenity.  Every day I start […]

“Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable.” – Carl Jung, Swiss psychiatrist and founder of Analytical Psychology Quoted at QuotationsBook  

The academic teaching on beauty is false. We have been misled, but so completely misled that we can no longer find so much as a shadow of a truth again. The beauties of the Parthenon, the Venuses, the Nymphs, the Narcisusses, are so many lies. Art is not the application of a canon of beauty, […]

Widmann, a Swiss poet, describes Brahms’ performing at the piano: The broad leonine chest, the Herculean shoulders, the mighty head which the player sometimes threw back with an energetic jerk, the pensive, handsome brow that seemed to radiate an inner illumination, and the Germanic eyes which scintillated with a wondrous fire between their fair lashes […]