Make your musical lines as long as possible. Rachmaninoff said, “Small musician, small ideas; big musician, big ideas.” After an artist has played a program many times he can soar so high above the music that he conceives the whole event in one arch of sound. Make each phrase prepare for the next; make many […]

“I like honesty and sincerity; and I maintain that an artist should not be shabbily treated.” – Beethoven, in a letter to C. F. Peters, 5 June 1822 E. Anderson, Letters of Beethoven (1961), cited in Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. United Kingdom, Oxford, OUP Oxford, 2014.

Leopold Stokowski was staging a concert version of Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov. Natalie Bodanya, one of the finest singers at Curtis at the time, refused to audition, noting how “impersonal and impossible Stokowski was. Stokowski had filled all the roles, with the exception of that the Princess. “Is it possible” Stokowski asked Sylvan [Sylvan Lenin, a […]

“Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.” Attributed to Pablo Picasso, painter

I. Andante-Moderato II. Allegro non troppo III. Largo IV. Allegretto Having recently finished his Eighth Symphony, Shostakovich stated work on his second Piano Trio in late 1943: Chamber music demands of a composer the most impeccable technique and depth of thought. I don’t think I will be wrong if I say that composers sometimes hide […]

Title: Smooth Sailing Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano duet Level: Piano 1 – 1.1 (five finger position) Product medium: PDF score (audio of accompaniment track only)

“I liked everything about the opera but the music.” – Benjamin Britten on Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress Cited in: Jarski, Rosemarie (2005) Great British Wit.  London: Ebury Press, p. 203.

“An idea is salvation by imagination.” – Frank Lloyd Wright, American architect

Education & research services in the fields below are offered both: – online – face to face Skill areas: – Aural and harmony – Analysis – Music history – Piano tuition How can Emotemuse help you? – Tuition – Research and analysis Contact   THE CRAFT OF THE MUSICAL LANGUAGE Greg Smith completed a Bachelor […]

On the one hand, I believe that to connect tradition and innovation is the most important thing to me personally. On the other hand, to explore the score and be close to what the composer wanted is essential. There is a way to find your own language within the details that the composers left. Julius […]