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.  

Title: Love came down at Christmas Text: Christina Rossetti Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano solo Product medium: MP3 audio     Related products:     – Love came down at Christmas – SATB and piano (PDF score)     – Love came down at Christmas – Piano solo (PDF score) Samples:

“To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.” – Leonard Bernstein

This will be our response to violence To make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.  – Leonard Bernstein.

Abram Chasins visited Rachmaninoff in Hollywood: Arriving at the designated hour of twelve, I heard an occasional piano sound as I approached the cottage. I stood outside the door, unable to believe my ears, Rachmaninoff was practising Chopin’s étude in thirds [G sharp minor, Op. 25, No. 6], but at such a snail’s pace that […]

People often begged him to play a little air on the violin, but he refused great lords and his fellow de-bauchers alike.  The only person who succeeded in making him play was the Marshal de Grammont.  He had a footman called La Lande who later became one of the best violinists in Europe.  After a […]

“Blessed are the weird people–poets, misfits, writers, mystics…painters & troubadours–for they teach us to see the world through different eyes.” — Jacob Nordby Jacob Nordby (2016) Blessed are the Wierd: A Manefesto for Creatives, Boise: Manifesto, Publishing House, p.8.

Op. 9, no. 2 (Eb major)Op. 15, no. 3 (G minor)Op. 27, no. 1 (C-sharp minor)Op. 27, no. 2 (Db major) Chopin, while Polish by birth established his career in Paris, where his music was well received in intimate venues. In an article in Revue Musicale in 1832, François-Joseph Fétis wrote that Chopin “has found, […]

After a year’s sabbatical in 1953, the pianist Horowitz found a routine and rebuilt his technique: I realized I had to work out new daily schedules for myself – so much time for study, for rest, for reflection, for exercise … Soon my days had a new rhythm, a new serenity.  Every day I start […]

For me, inspiration comes from a bunch of places: desperation, deadlines… A lot of times ideas will turn up when you’re doing something else. And, most of all, ideas come from confluence — they come from two things flowing together. They come, essentially, from daydreaming. . . . And I suspect that’s something every human […]