The making of heroes and cowards

“Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply unveil them to the eyes of men.”

– Brooke Westcott, Bishop of Durham, scholar, theologian

Cited at Quotations Book


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Featured Content

The Fox (New Year’s Day)
Composer: Greg SmithTitle: “The Fox (New Year’s Day)” from Tableaux Performer: Greg Smith (January 2025)Instrumentation: Piano
I do not choose my listeners
“I do not choose my listeners. What I mean is, I never write for my listeners. I think about my audience, but I am not writing for them. I have something to tell them, but the audience must also put a certain effort into it. But I never wrote for an audience and never will […]
Music better than it can be performed
Now I am attracted only to music which I consider to be better than it can be performed. Therefore I feel (rightly or wrongly) that unless a piece of music presents a problem to me, a neverending problem, it doesn’t interest me too much. For instance, Chopin’s studies are lovely pieces, perfect pieces, but I […]
The development of concert life in London
The public concert, as an institution, dates from England from the Restoration period [from the 1660s]; previously music, unless ecclesiastical or dramatic in character, had been essentially the art of a small circle.  The largess of aristocratic patronage and the profits of publication were the composers’ rewards.  But with the middle of the seventeenth century […]
Piper’s Tale
Title: Piper’s Tale Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano duet Level: Piano I –  2 (five finger position – pentatonic scale [black keys]) Product medium: PDF score and MP3 accompaniment track SAMPLE: (Audio sample of accompaniment track only)
Born for music
“I was born with eyes closed listening to my heartbeat from my mother’s womb… There, without knowing it, I discovered that I would be born and would die for music…” – Alicastro Source: Peer Music.‘
Determination not to be hurried
“Nothing can be more useful to a man than the determination not to be hurried.” – Henry David Thoreau
Teach Me Your Ways, O Lord – Psalm 24 (25)
Title: Teach me your ways, O Lord Text: Psalm 24 (25):4-9 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part Sample:
Art and patience
“Good art is nothing more than infinite patience.” William Wallace Kimball, founder of Kimball Piano Company Cited in: Cited in: Kimball, K., Petersen, R., Johnson, K. (1990) The Music Lover’s Quotation Book. Toronto: Sound and Vision, p. 85.
Waste no note
“Never write an unnecessary note. Every note must live.” Jean Sibelius, in a radio interview with Kalevi Kilpi, 1948) Cited at: www.sibelius.fi [accessed 31 Mar 2010].