Burnett James describes how in the 1920s Ravel was preoccupied with decorating "Le Belvédère" [his house] and in laying out the garden with many small exotic plants and miniature Japanese trees. To see that house and garden today is to experience a feeling of direct contact with Ravel. He deliberately made it an accurate reflection […]

“My interest lies in my self-expression — what’s inside of me — not what I’m in.” – John Turturro, American actor Cited at: QuotationsBook  

“There is hardly any treatise which could be too learned for me. I have not the slightest pretension to what is properly called erudition. Yet from my childhood I have striven to understand what the better and wiser people of every age were driving at in their works. Shame on an artist who does not […]

“You cannot set art off in a corner and hope for it to have vitality, reality, and substance.” – Charles Ives, American composer

In 1995, Bjork released a big band jazz cover of Betty Hutton’s 1948 hit “Blow a Fuse”. This was a cover of an Austrian song “Und jetzt ist es still” by Hans Lang and Erich Meder. Bjork said of the song: Isn’t that the best song you’ve heard for five years? In a way it […]

When Mozart was writing his opera Idomeno, his father warned him to make sure it was accessible to all the audience. Mozart replied: As far as the so-called Popular style is concerned, don’t worry about it; in my Opera you’ll find Musick for every kind of listener = except for those with the long ears […]

“If all would play first violin, we could not obtain an orchestra. Therefore esteem every musician in his place.” — Robert Schumann Robert Schumann (translated by Henry Hugo Pierson), Advice to Young Musicains [Musikalische Haus- und Lebens-Regeln]. New York: J. Schuberth & Co. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28219/28219-h/28219-h.htm, accessed 29 August 2021.

At the 1905 premiere of La Mer, one of whose movements is called “From Dawn to Midday on the Sea”, Debussy received the usual post-performance congratulations. Satie’s deflating comment was, “Ah, my dear friend, there’s one particular moment between half past ten and a quarter to eleven that I found especially stunning.” Levison, B. (2015). […]

“Anxiety is the handmaiden of creativity”. — Chuck Jones, animator Goleman, D., Kaufman, P., & Ray, M. (1993) The Creative Spirit. New York: Plume.