“I don’t mind telling you that I have written a tiny, tiny pianoforte concerto with a tiny, tiny wisp of a scherzo.  It is in B flat, and I have reason to fear I have worked this udder, which has always yielded good milk before, too often and too vigorously.” – Brahms on his Second […]

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)

Daniel Saidenberg ws the first cellist of the Philadelphia Orchestra, conducted by Leopold Stokowski.  He recalled: Stoki’s ability to exert disciplines was occasionally matched by a sense of humor.  After a concert at which I had played the Saint-Saëns A-minor Concerto, one of my buddies said, “Watch your step, Danny.  All through the second movement, […]

“There once was a brainy baboon who always breathed down a bassoon for he said, It appears that in billions of years I shall certainly hit on a tune.” -Ezra Pound – American poet, musician and critic Cited at: QuotationsBook  

While attending school in Lüneberg, J. S. Bach used to travel to Hamburg (50km away) to hear the organist of the Catharinekirche: J. A. Reincken.  Marpurg describes how Bach, returning almost penniless to Lüneberg, once rested outside an inn; how someone threw two herring heads out on the rubbish heap; how Bach – a Thuringian, to […]

"I know of no work by Schumann that is not wonderful and inspiring.  One must leave every note just as he wrote it and experiment in order to find the correct balance and equilibrium.  With Schumann there is always this burning inventiveness, this unbelievable inspiration." – András Schiff.  Cited in Julian Haylock ""The Music of […]

When I was younger I read a lot of Kafka and Büchner: I’ve always been drawn to the darker side of things, and I think that part of the beauty of what we do as artists is to dare other people to explore it too. I wish the listener to invest something. Showing up to […]

Xaver Schydner von Wartensee, in the early days of meeting Beethoven, was curious about a tale he had heard about Beethoven and a spider. Before Schnyder had become acquainted with the immortal Master, he had read the well-known anecdote according to which, when Beethoven was practising the violin in his garret, a spider lowered itself […]

Abstract art is only painting. And what’s so dramatic about that? There is no abstract art. One must always begin with something. Afterwards one can remove all semblance of reality; there is no longer any danger as the idea of the object has left an indelible imprint. It is the object which aroused the artist, […]

“What greater pleasure is there is life than giving young and beautiful talent a little lift in the direction of the stars though they will never reach them.” Sir Clifford Curzon – English pianist Pianist, No. 59, April-May 2011, Warner Group publications, p.10.