The experience of composition

“I am not suited to ‘writing music’. All has to be experienced.”

-Jean Sibelius

Cited in:Goss, Glenda (2009) “Sibelius”. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, p. 6.


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Waiting for inspiration
The composer does not sit around wait wait for inspiration to walk up and introduce itself … Making music is actually little else than a matter of invention aided and abetted by emotion. In composing we combine what we know of music with what we feel. — George Gershwin Isaac Goldberg. Tin Pan Alley. New […]
A $1.2 million piano
“Spotlights dance down on 216 jewels of lead crystal, set in dazzling diamond patterns into the piano’s black lid, sides, legs, fallboard and bench. Each jewel features several hundred to several thousand intricately cut, ground and polished pieces of crystal — nearly a half-million in all.” Glass artist Jon Kuhn has collobarated with Bosendorfer to […]
Artificial by nature
Burnett James describes how in the 1920s Ravel was preoccupied with decorating "Le Belvédère" [his house] and in laying out the garden with many small exotic plants and miniature Japanese trees. To see that house and garden today is to experience a feeling of direct contact with Ravel. He deliberately made it an accurate reflection […]
Can you teach resourcefulness
Young musicians will need resourcefulness to make their way in the world. Music “jobs” in the future are likely to be less attached to institutions (many of which are troubled in one way or another), entrepreneurial, and varied beyond a straight performance career to include all manner of teaching, coaching,  and work we could loosely […]
Puccini’s hangout
Puccini was a very sociable man, quote often putting this before his composing.  Even when he was working hard, he maintained an active social life: With the opening of the 1894-1895 season not far way, Puccini began steady work on La Bohème in Torre.  But he also needed a place to relax, so his “second […]
Sanctuary (The Boy and the Heron)
Composer: Joe HisaishiArranger: Greg SmithTitle: “Sanctuary”, from The Boy and the HeronInstrumentation: Piano Solo Available from Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus.
Beethoven our artistic brother
It is the function of art to bring to us emotions, thoughts, states of mind and heart which are larger and more exalted and more intense than those we can produce ourselves, but which we can still recognize as possible within the compass of our imagination, still lying within our capacity for thinking and feeling. […]
Musical taste in England in 1925
A general perspective of musical taste in Britain in the 1920s can be seen in the letters to radio broadcasters. In 1926, the B.B.C. (at that time, the British Broadcasting Company) (1) compiled correspondence to the company. In the week ending December 4, of the 7600 letters received, 302 were critical: 125 condemned dance music […]
Love Came Down At Christmas (Rossetti)
Title: Love came down at Christmas Text: Christina Rossetti Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part     Related products:     – Love came down at Christmas – Piano solo (PDF score)     – Love came down at Christmas – Piano solo (MP3) hase_link id=”1674″ text=”Purchase” style=”button” color=”blue”] Samples:
Schubert’s progress
Schubert’s report card in in the Music of the Court Chapel Choir-Boys in the I. & R. Seminary, 1st term, 1809: Name Morals Studies Singing Pianoforte Violin Remarks Schubert Franz v. good good v. good good v. good A musical talent Report card for the Scholars of the First Grammar Class at the University Preparatory […]