“I am not satisfied with any man who despises music. For music is a gift of God. It will drive away the devil, and makes people cheerful. Occupied with it, man forgets all anger, unchastity, pride, and other vices. Next to theology, I give music the next place and highest praise.” – Martin Luther Cited […]

Chopin had a free sense of rhythm.  In 1842, Chopin was giving a lessen to Wilhem von Lenz when Meyerbeer walked in.  The Mazurka (op. 33 no. 3) was being played.  von Lenz recounts: Meyerbeer had seated himself; Chopin let me play on. “That is two-four time,” said Meyerbeer. For reply, Chopin made me repeat, […]

Title: Miniature I Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano duet Level: Piano I – Level 1 (5 finger position, left and right hands) Product medium: PDF score & MP3 accompaniment track (Audio sample of accompaniment track only)

This culmination may be at the end or in the middle, it may be loud or soft; but the performer must know how to approach it with absolute calculation, absolute precision, because, if it slips by, then the whole construction crumbles, and the piece becomes disjointed and scrappy and does not convey to the listener […]

“Beauty will save the world.” – The Idiot, Fyodor Dostoyevsky

We are the music-makers, And we are the dreamers of dreams, Wandering by lone sea-breakers, And sitting by desolate streams; World-losers and world-forsakers, On whom the pale moon gleams: Yet we are the movers and shakers Of the world for ever, it seems. With wonderful deathless ditties We build up the world’s great cities, And […]

“A lot of what you call the great repertoire is popular, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a great work. I mean, come on. Rachmaninoff 3 is great. There shouldn’t be ‘If this work is so popular, then don’t do it.’ In the art world it is only what you feel right to perform.” Lang […]

Nora Guthrie, Woody's daughter, once told me a story about a reception she was at where Bob Dylan was in attendance. The business people there were quietly commenting on how unsociable Dylan seemed to them, not what they imagined an encounter with Dylan would be like. When that observation about Dylan's behavior and disposition were […]

Tchaikovsky was an enthusiastic student at the St. Petersberg Conservatoire.  Anton Rubinstein asked Tchaikvosky to write a series of contrapuntal variations on a given theme.  "I expected that he would present me with about a dozen.  But Tchaikovsky turned up the next class day with more than two hundred!" Cited in: Hanson, Lawrence and Elisabeth […]

Title: Forgive ( Прости!) (opus 60, no. 11] Composer: Pytor Il'yich Tchaikovsky (arr. Greg Smith) Instrumentation: Cello and piano Product medium: PDF score and part Sample: