Beethoven moved often, and his landlords were not always keen to have him back. While he was working on the Ninth Symphony in 1923, Beethoven couldn’t stand his present lodgings in Hetzendorf, as the landlord, Baron Pronay, constantly bowed to him when they met.He sought lodgings where he had previously stayed in Baden.  The landlord […]

Greatness means the construction of an inner world, and the communication of this inner world to the physical world of humanity.  The two belong together; neither is thinkable without the other.  The strongest feeling and the most vivid imagination are worthless to humanity if they do not manifest themselves; the greatest constructive talent is worthless […]

O, how wonderful is the human voice! It is indeed the organ of the soul! The intellect of man sits enthroned visibly upon his forehead and in his eye; and the heart of man is written uponhis countenance. But the soul reveals itself in the voice only; as God revealed himself to the prophet of […]

“Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.” Matthew Arnold (poet and scholar), Preface to Literature and Dogma (1873 edition), https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Literature_and_Dogma/Introduction, accesssed 29 August 2021.

“It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet

American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim has released a book Finishing the Hat: The Collected Lyrics of Stephen Sondheim, with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes.  The following is an extract from interview an article on Sondheim by Emma Brockes: Initially a maths student at Williams College in Massachusetts, the young Sondheim took […]

Herr Richter, the pianist, is going on a tour that will take him back to Holland, his native country – I have given him a letter introductionto the Countess Thun at Linz. – He also wishes to visit Salzbourg, so I gave him a 4-line note for you, my dearest father … He plays well […]

Artur Schnabel is a pianist unlike any other. One is conscious in listening to him of a powerful and original mind revealing unsuspected meanings and complications in music as familiar as Brahms’s Intermezzi and Beethoven’s ‘Waldstein’ Sonata. His tone is a rule dry in anything above a piano, but a sudden touch of the pedal […]

The artist who does not feel completely satisfied by elegant lines, by harmonious colours, and by a beautiful succession of chords does not understand the art of music. — Camille Saint-Saëns Cited in Milton Cross David Ewan, Encyclopedia of Great Composers and Their Music, volume 2. Double Day, 1969, p.819.

Seiji Ozawa recalls Karajan’s overarching concept of music: I really shouldn’t start comparing Karajan and Bernstein. I’m thinking of the word “direction” – the direction of the music. In Maestro Karajan’s case, he had it from birth – the ability to make long phrases. It was something he taught us, the ones who studied with […]