When Brahms was young, he had to play in rowdy taverns to help support his family. Dance music was what the people in the taverns wanted, and Hannes would sometimes relieve the monotony by improvising variations on the popular waltzes of the day.  But what finally made his work endurable was the discovery that while […]

Ravel’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 […]

As the talented student grows older he must seek within himself his interpretation.  Does he wish to know how to play the cantilena of Beethoven or Chopin? He must feel it himself!  Talent is feeling, the feeling that every player experiences in his innermost consciousness… It takes years of work to understand and think out […]

“Like climbing an infinite stairway, one step at a time.” —Pavel Kolesnikov, working on Bach’s Goldberg Variations. Jeal, Erica, “Pavel Kolesnikov, the pianist making ‘a palace of sound built by your own imagination’”, The Guardian, 9 September 2021, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/sep/09/pavel-kolesnikov-the-pianist-making-a-palace-of-sound-built-by-your-own-imagination, accessed 11 September 2021.

“Opera in English, is about as sensible as baseball in Italian.” – H. L. Mencken, twentieth century American journalist, critic, and satirist. Peter, Lawrence J. (ed) (1977) Quotations for Our Time

“I say that in the aria ‘La donna è mobile’, for example, which the elite thinks only brilliant and superficial, there is more substance and feeling than in the whole of Wagner’s Ring cycle.” – Igor StravinskyCited in Brandenburg, Daniel (2012). Verdi: Rigoletto. Bärenreiter.

Title: Glory and praise for ever Text: Dan 3:52-56. R. v.52 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Cantor, SATB refrain, and organ Product medium: PDF score and parts SAMPLE:

PERFORMANCE BIOGRAPHY GREG SMITH Certifications and degrees: – 1996: Associate of Music, Australia (A. mus. A.) in piano performance – 1998: Licentiate of Music, Australia (L. mus. A.) in piano performance – 2001: Bachelor of Music, with honours, class I (University Medal).  University of Newcastle.  Double major in piano and composition. – 2003: Master of […]

Beethoven, who is often bizarre and baroque, takes at times the majestic flight of an eagle, and then creeps in rocky pathways. He first fills the soul with sweet melancholy, and then shatters it by a mass of shattered chords. He seems to harbor together doves and crocodiles. A review of Beethoven’s First Symphony, Tablettes […]

In the early 18th century, the standard of Italian opera performances had become somewhat questionable. In 1720, The satirical writer Marcello offered some advice to those involved in opera performance: [The opera performer] will hurry or slow down the pace of an aria, according to the caprice of the singers, and will conceal the displeasure […]