The musician’s role: maintain our trust in the world“I feel that tolerance, love and social harmony can and should be the by-products of an artist’s way of life and creation. I would like to believe that beauty and truth, two great disciplines, when combined as they are in music, where order is based on self-restraint and a better understanding of repose, will lead […]
A duet under the bedIt 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 […]
Blessed the People the Lord has Chosen (Setting II) – Psalm 32 (33)Title: Blessed the people the Lord has chosen (setting ii) Text: Psalm 32 (33) Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part SAMPLE:
The framework of a symphonyThe framework of a symphony must be so strong that it forces you to follow it regardless of the environment and circumstances: [it is] an “ethical necessity”. Jean Sibelius, to Jussi Jalas, 1 October 1939 Cited at: www.sibelius.fi [accessed 31 Mar 2010].
Underrated and overrated composers“Polls of various musical personalities (but not me) in the Times about who’s underrated and who’s overrated. Naturally Vivaldi is deemed overrated in the light of Bach. Since everyone knows he’s overrated. I’d have said he’s the most underrated of overrated composers.” Ned Rorem (2000) Lies: A Diary 1986-1999. Cambridge: MA: Da Capo Press, p.82. […]
It’s not hard work“Talent labors, genius creates.” Florestan (one of Schumann’s characters) Robert Schumann,Gesammelte Schriften über Musik und Muisker (Leipzig, 1854), IV. Cited in Weiss, Piero & Taruskin, Richard (2008) Music in the Western World: A History in Documents. California: Thomson, p. 306.
Fantasia on Ding Dong Merrily on HighComposer: Greg Smith (based on a 16th-century French melody)Title: Fantasia on Ding Dong Merrily on HighInstrumentation: Cello and piano Available from Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus. SAMPLES:
Go Out to All the World – Psalm 116 (117)Title: Go out to all the world Text: Psalm 116 (117). R. Mk 16:15 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and organ Product medium: PDF score and part SAMPLE:
Doing what I can’t do“I am always doing what I can’t do yet in order to learn how to do it”. – Van Gogh, painter, in a letter to Anthon van Rappard, 1885