“Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which is everything in this world.” — Blaise Pascal, French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. Ramage, Craufurd Tait (1866) Beautiful Thoughts from French and Italian Authors.  Liverpool: Edward Howell, p.232. Digitally archived at https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=nDErAAAAYAAJ&hl=en_AU, accessed 12 September 2021.

The following appeared in the Musical Times in 1913: An amusing story, for the truth of which we can vouch, comes to us from Toronto. An organist had drawn up the order of a Sunday service, and it was in type ready for printing, when the death of an important personage made a change necessary. […]

“I do think audiences become more sophisticated. You try something out on them and they say, “Ugh”. You try it a second time and they say, “Oh”. You try it a third time and they say, “Ooh”. You try it a fourth time and they say, “Oh, that’s awfully old hat.”’ He laughs. ‘That’s the […]

Title: Rustic Dance Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score SAMPLE:

Composer: Greg Smith (based on a 16th-century French melody)Title: Fantasia on Ding Dong Merrily on HighInstrumentation: Cello and piano Available from Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus. SAMPLES:

TITLE: Tale COMPOSER: Greg Smith INSTRUMENTATION: Bassoon and Piano PRODUCT MEDIUM: PDF score and part PRICE: $11.95 SAMPLES:

“I would like to see the emphasis in teaching shift from the performer to the three elements necessary for satisfying music-making: the composer/ improviser, audience and player. I would also like to see the intelligent, inspired exploration of the question of interpretation – in Indian classical music, for instance, it is the opening up of […]

George Plimpton, a writer and sportsman, asked if he could play in the New York Philharmonic for a month to write about the workings of an orchestra.  Leonard Bernstein assigned him to the percussion section.  The principal percussionist, Walter Rosenberg, recalled his experience: During rehearsals I would lean over and point to where we were […]

Between 1910 and 1938 the Austrian violin virtuoso Fritz Kreisler produced some arrangements of works by Boccherini, Martini, Couperin, Vivaldi and Porpora. They were positively achieved by the crticis.  In 1935, Kreisler revealed that there were not arrangements at all, but in fact works which he had written from scratch.  Suddenly critic’s attitudes to the […]

When he [Beethoven] came to Vienna, he knew nothing at all of the fine art of cooking.  He cared little about good food, his favorite dish being a mess of macaroni with plenty of cheese on top.  He liked, too, the simplest kind of stew, and fish from the Danube.  Ignaz Seyfried reported that Beethoven […]