“The tragedy of music is that it begins with perfection.” – Morton Feldman, American composer. Cited in a May 1976 interview, Studio International, November 1976, pp. 244-248.

“It is surprising what a man can do when he has to, and how little most men will do when they don’t have to.” — Walter Linn The Signalman’s Journal, Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, vol. 29-30, 1948, p.188. 

I confess that I live only in my surroundings and in myself. I can conceive of no greater pleasure than sitting in my chair at this desk and looking at the walls around me day by day and night after night. In these pictures I do not see what you see; in the trees outside […]

“Beauty will save the world.” – The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Benjamin Appl on working with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau: When people ask me about what I learned from Fischer-Dieskau, that’s what I always come back to: of course I could say a hundred things about technique and his reputation, but what I found most inspiring was how he created everything afresh. Whenever he was teaching he’d prepare […]

Title: Go out to all the world Text: Psalm 116 (117). R. Mk 16:15 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and organ Product medium: PDF score and part SAMPLE:

The only way to take classical music out of the museum is to stop playing it in a museum.  The adventurous cellist Matt Haimovitz said as much recently, when he toured dive bars, pizza parlours, and roadhouse juke joints with the [Bach] Cello Suites.  “People were reaction to the music as it was going by,” […]

In the eighteenth century, hooped skirts were a popular choice of ladies dress attire as they enabled a dramatic entrance, and also flattered the figure when pregnant. They did take up considerable space though. For the performance of the Messiah Handel instructed the ladies to come without hooped skirts, and gentlemen without their swords. The […]

A student of Rachmaninoff, Ruth Slenczynska: was practising one of Rachmaninov’s preludes when he asked her to join him at the window. It was springtime in Paris, and the avenues were lined with mimosa trees laden with fluffy, golden blossoms. “He said: ‘You see that? That’s what you want to bring to your sound – […]

“I did not want to describe emotions or scenes through music. I wanted to be at a certain distance from the story and the characters, and I wanted to be in between the actual story and what we see on the screen, and the viewers, in terms of writing the music.” — Joe Hisaishi T. […]