George Sand on Chopin’s compositional process“His creation was spontaneous and miraculous. He found it without seeking it, without forseeing it. It came on his piano suddenly, complete, sublime, or it sang in his head during a walk when he was impatient to play it to himself. But then he began the most heart-rending labor I ever saw. It was a […]
Glenn Gould on recordingPianist Glenn Gould discussed the recording process with Yehudi Menuhin completing the playback of a Bach gigue: Now, Yehudi, you’ve got to admit that you would not be likely to encounter a sound like that in the concert hall… The point is that, if I were to play that piece in a concert hall, as […]
Meditation IIComposer: Greg SmithTitle: Meditation IIInstrumentation: PianoProduct medium: PDF scorePrice: $3 Sample: Your user agent does not support the HTML5 Audio element.
Men of genius“Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1849), Kavanagh, London: George Slater, p.49. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=i8ENAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false, accessed 4 September 2021.
Arthur Schnabel“Artur Schnabel is a pianist unlike any other. One is conscious in listening to him of a powerful and original mind revealing unsuspected meanings and complications in music as familiar as Brahm’s Intermezzi and Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Sonata. His tone is as a rule dry in anything above a piano, but a sudden touch of pedal […]
How to win over an orchestraHaydn was in London in 1791 when he performed in a concert led by Johann Salomon (a violinist/composer). Salomon played the first violin and led the orchestra, and Haydn sat at the harpsichord, keeping the band together by an occasional chord or two, as the practice then was. Great composers have not always been […]
Fill Us With Your Love, O Lord – Psalm 89 (90)Title: Fill us with your love, O Lord Text: Psalm 89 (90): 12-17. R. v.14 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part SAMPLE: .
Life is green“All theory is grey, but the precious tree of life is green.” Maurice Ravel to Hélène Jourdan-Morhange, describing Schoenberg’s intellectualism. Hélène Jourdan-Morhange, Ravel et nous (Geneva, 1945), p. 104. Cited in: Nichols, Roger (1987) Ravel Remembered. London: Faber & Faber., p. 61.
The London Proms in the 1930sA recollection of the London Proms in 1936: The behavior of the Promenaders was more genteel in those days … there wasn’t the same degree of shouting as now. During the famous hornpipe in Henry Wood’s Fantasia on British Sea Songs people tapped with their umbrellas and sticks, rather than stamping. As the applause went […]
The Just Will Live in the Presence of the Lord (Setting II) – Psalm 14 (15)Title: The just will live in the presence of the Lord (Setting II) Text: Psalm 14 (15):2-5 (setting ii) Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part Sample:
