The shelf life of popular art

“The fact is popular art dates. It grows quaint. How many people feel strongly about Gilbert and Sullivan today compared to those who felt strongly in 1890?”

– Stephen Sondheim, composer.

Cited at: QuotationsBook


Featured Content

Inner-most feelings can be expressed in music
Taneyev was critical of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. Tchaikovsky’s response ended with: “I can see you laughing as you read all of this, you sceptic and mocking-bird.  In spite of your great love of music it seems you still can’t believe that a man can express his inmost feelings in his compositions.  You just wait!” Cited […]
A duet under the bed
It was in the eventful year, then, of 1813—the year of “Il Figlio per Azzardo”, with its obbligato accompaniment for lamp-shades of “Tancredi” and of “L’Italiana in Algeri”—that Rossini was writing one morning in bed, when the duet on which he was engaged fell from his hands. “Nothing easier”, an ordinary composer would say, “than […]
It’s my apartment and I’ll play if I want to
Prokofiev and his family moved into a small top floor-apartments in Paris.  Prokofiev spent much time practicing a revised version of his second piano concerto (which was to be premiered 8 May 1924).  The apartment manager demanded that Prokofiev cease playing.  His wife Lina recalled Prokofiev’s response: All right then, you don’t want to hear […]
Adding quality music to the world
“My music is melodic.  After all, why add to the world’s problem’s with bad music.” Alexander Prior, composer. Source: Classic FM, December 2009, p.9
Schiff on Schumann
"I know of no work by Schumann that is not wonderful and inspiring.  One must leave every note just as he wrote it and experiment in order to find the correct balance and equilibrium.  With Schumann there is always this burning inventiveness, this unbelievable inspiration." – András Schiff.  Cited in Julian Haylock ""The Music of […]
The construction of music
It appears to me that the subject of music, from Machaut to Boulez, has always been its construction. Melodies of 12-tone rows just don’t happen. They must be constructed…. To demonstrate any formal idea in music, whether structure or stricture, is a matter of construction, in which the methodology is the controlling metaphor of the […]
Wexford Carol (SATB and piano)
Title: Wexford Carol Text: 12th century Irish Composer: 12th century Irish, arr. Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano     Related products:     – Wexford Carol – SATB and organ (PDF score) Product medium: PDF score and parts Sample:
Hope
“Hope is the dream of a soul awake.”— French proverb. R. A. Krieger, Civilization’s Quotations: Life’s Ideal, New York, Algora Publishing, 2002, p.151. 
Mozart on rubato in adagios
In 1777, Mozart visited Heir Stein in Ausburg (1). According to Mozart, Stein had stated that no-one has ever played his Piano Forte as well as I have, and, besides, I always keep correct time. They are all wondering about that. They simply can’t believe that you can play a Tempo rubato in an Adagio, […]
Abstraction III
Title: Abstraction III Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Trombone and piano Product medium: PDF score and part SAMPLE: