“As musicians, we are already doing something for the world … We make it more flowing? … Through music”. Pianist Lang Lang Shirley Apthorp, “Piano Man”, The Australian, May 14 2011.

Title: Abstraction Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score Sample:

ABSTRACT The nineteenth and twentieth centuries witnessed the rapid growth of musical culture in Russia. This resulted in a large repertoire of piano music — ranging from miniatures to virtuosic etudes and sonatas. Growing out of the nineteenth century romantic tradition, and highly influenced by the social conditions of the time, Russian composers developed a distinctive style which […]

An account by R. L. Stevens (1775): When Handel was blind, and attending a performance of the Oratorio Jephtha, Mr [William] Savage, my master, who sat next to him said, “This movement, sir, reminds of me of some of old Purcell’s music.” “G got te teffel”, said Handel, “if Purcell had lived, he would have […]

By 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? […]

“I am always doing what I can’t do yet in order to learn how to do it”. – Van Gogh, painter, in a letter to Anthon van Rappard, 1885  

Title: Air III Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Duet Level: Piano I – level 1 (five finger positions, left and right hands) Product medium: PDF score & MP3 accompaniment track (Audio sample of accompaniment track only)

When he [Beethoven] came to Vienna, he knew nothing at all of the fine art of cooking.  He cared little about good food, his favorite dish being a mess of macaroni with plenty of cheese on top.  He liked, too, the simplest kind of stew, and fish from the Danube.  Ignaz Seyfried reported that Beethoven […]

Title: God mounts his throne (Setting II) Text: Psalm 46 (47): 2-3, 6-7, 8-9 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and organ Related products: – God mounts his throne (Setting II) – SATB, brass, and organ Product medium: PDF score and part SAMPLE:

Make your musical lines as long as possible. Rachmaninoff said, “Small musician, small ideas; big musician, big ideas.” After an artist has played a program many times he can soar so high above the music that he conceives the whole event in one arch of sound. Make each phrase prepare for the next; make many […]