Delius on the role of music

“The chief reason for the degeneration of present-day music lies in the fact that people want to get physical sensations from music more than anything else. Emotion is out of date and intellect a bore. Appreciation of art which has been born of profound thought and intensity of experience necessitates an intellectual effort too exhausting for most people in the present day. In the age of neurasthenics music, like everything else, must be a stimulant, must be alcoholic, aphrodisiac, or it is no good.”

Delius in a 1920s edition of The Sackbut.

Cited in: Julian Haylock, “Delius”, Classic FM, December 2010, p.46

Posted

in

by

Greg

Tags:

, ,

Featured Content

A replacement conductor
The following appeared in the Musical Times, August 1890: We read that “a Saxon engineer has invented an automatic machine, the object of which is to save conductors the physical part of their duties. By pressing a button the apparatus, which is provided with an arm holding a conducting-stick, can be made to beat with the […]
Part of the bigger picture
Leopold Stokowski conducted the American premier of Berg’s opera Wozzeck in 1930 (a joint effort of The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Phildelphia Grand Opera, and Curtis Institute).  Abram Chasins recalls a rehearsal: I attended his second rehearsal with the orchestra in the pit and singers on the stage.  After some twenty minutes of singing and acting, […]
They who dream
“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” — Edgar Allan Poe
Brass
Brass ensemble Trombone
Context and beauty
“When you’re young, you can be taken with the impulse of the moment and the beauty of a phrase, but the older you get, the more you see that the phrase is only beautiful because of the context within which it works.  The melody is only the outward manifestation of something quite deep inside and […]
Einstein on creativity
“Creativity is intelligence having fun.” – Albert Einstein.
To burn with desire
“To burn with desire and keep quiet about it is the greatest punishment we can bring on ourselves.” — Federico García Lorca, Blood Wedding and Yerma A. Flores (ed.), Great Spanish Plays in English Translation, New York, Dover, 1991, p.441.
Memories (The Boy and the Heron)
Composer: Joe HisaishiArranger: Greg SmithTitle: “Memories”, from The Boy and the HeronInstrumentation: Piano Solo This item is available from Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus.
A hunch
Logically, a hunch makes as much sense as saying, horses have tails; therefore, all tails have horses.”  But in the zany world of films you don’t explain hunches — you just live and die by them. Frank Capra (1971) The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography.  Macmillan, p. 123. 
Tchaikovsky on Don Giovanni
Tchaikovsky, later in his life, reflected on hearing Mozart's Don Giovanni as a boy: The music of Don Giovanni was the first to conquer me completely.  It awoke an ecstasy in me of which the consequences are known.  It gave me the key to the spheres of pure beauty in which the greatest geniuses soar.  […]