An art gathers new material usually by an original rejection of old formulae, a gesture of negation. At the beginning, this gesture is conscious, defiant, it lacks any other reason for existence than the very healthy one that dogma is death. In the turmoil of growth and expansion, this negation and denial loses its identity […]

In mid-nineteenth century England, whistling was a common source of entertainment and as part of the general reception to a piece of music. An article in March 1854 in The Musical Times reported: We were sorry to hear the vile practice of whistling again carried on to some extent at the concert; were the well-meaning […]

Mozart’s Magic Flute uses a glass harmonica or keyed glockenspiel to represent a set of magic bells. “Mozart’s original score for the 1791 opera The Magic Flute called for a glass harmonica or keyed glockenspiel to represent a set of magic bells. The instruments were obscure even in Mozart’s day but more than 200 years after his […]

Robert de Fragny recalled a conversation with Ravel about his compositional process: The G major Concerto took two years of work, you know.  The opening theme came to me on a train between Oxford and London. But the initial idea is nothing.  The work of chiseling then begun.  We’ve gone past the days when the […]

TITLE: Lord, every nation on earth will adore you (setting ii) TEXT: Psalm 71 (72): 1-2, 7-8, 10-13. R. cf. v.11 COMPOSER: Greg Smith INSTRUMENTATION: SATB and piano PRODUCT MEDIUM: PDF score and part

Feeling creates thought, men willingly agree; but they will not so willingly agree that thought creates feeling, though this is scarcely less true. — Nicolas Chamfort (Sébastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort) S. Chamfort, Maxims and Considerations of Chamfort, Volume 2, Trans. E. Mathers, Golden Cockerel Press, 1926, p. 22.  

[Barbara Streisand’s] early voice training amounted to one lesson with a voice teacher. At that session Ms. Streisand sang “A Sleepin’ Bee,” the Harold Arlen song that she performed in her first television appearance, on “The Jack Paar Show” in 1961, just before turning 19. During the lesson Ms. Streisand got as far as the […]

Title: Elegie II Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Cello and piano Product medium: PDF score and part SAMPLE:

“In pantomime every single episode, each movement in each episode (its plastic modulations)—as well as the gestures of every character and the groupings of the ensemble—are determined precisely by the music, by its changes in tempo, its modulations, its overall structure. In pantomime the rhythm of the movements, gestures, and groupings synchronized precisely with the […]

“Art does not progress – it transforms itself.” – François-Joseph Fétes Siblin, Eric (2009) The Cello Suites.  Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin, p. 191.