The logic of opera in English“Opera in English, is about as sensible as baseball in Italian.” – H. L. Mencken, twentieth century American journalist, critic, and satirist. Peter, Lawrence J. (ed) (1977) Quotations for Our Time
Climbing Mount Fuji with a cello in hand“In 2007 Italian cellist Mario Brunello climbed to the summit of Mount Fuji and played selections from Bach’s cello suites, declaring that “Bach’s music comes closest to the absolute and to perfection.” Source: Siblin, Eric (2009) The Cello Suites. Crows Nest: Allen & Unwin. p.6.
Recollections from GallipoliTitle: Recollections from Gallipoli Text: Ellis Salis Music: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Tenor and piano Product medium: PDF score Sample:
Music acting as a spirit resonanceMy purpose is to create music not for snobs, but for all people, music which is beautiful and healing. To attempt what old Chinese painters called "spirit resonance" in melody and sound. – Alan Hovhaness. Cited at The Alan Hovhaness Website: http://www.hovhaness.com/Hovhaness.html
Feel creates thoughtFeeling 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.
Eighteenth century aestheticsMozart was not at all a purely instinctive, intuitive artist. His remarks to the effect that he “loved to plan works, study, and meditate” and that “he preferred to work slowly and with deliberation” [demonstrate this] … On one level, Mozart’s musical aesthetic is informed by three fundamental and closely related principles that can be […]
Structure and disharmony“I need to start from the assumption that the world of spirit is ordered, structured by its very nature, that everything which causes disharmony in the world, all that is monstrous, inexplicable, and dreadful … And the formula for world harmony is most likely linked not to the blurring of evil but to the fact […]
From the heart“What comes from the heart, goes to the heart.” — Samuel Coleridge Taylor, English poet, critic and philosopher. Coleridge, Samuel (1856) Seven Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton. London: Chapman and Hall, page xlv
We can’t all play first violin“If all would play first violin, we could not obtain an orchestra. Therefore esteem every musician in his place.” — Robert Schumann Robert Schumann (translated by Henry Hugo Pierson), Advice to Young Musicains [Musikalische Haus- und Lebens-Regeln]. New York: J. Schuberth & Co. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/28219/28219-h/28219-h.htm, accessed 29 August 2021.
Oration XIV (St. Gregory the Theologian)Title: Oration XIV Text: St. Gregory the Theologian Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score Samples:
