“Inspiration is merely the reward for working every day!”
– Charles Baudelaire (French poet).
According to Roland-Manuel, Ravel would often recite this phrase.
Source: Nichols, Roger (1987) Ravel Remembered. London: Faber & Faber, p. 143.
Baudelaire on inspiration
by
Featured Content
White Christmas
Accounts vary on where Irving Berlin wrote “White Christmas”. Berlin himself even recall differing circumstances on when it was penned. Some sources claim at was written at the poolside in Aizona Biltmore Resort and Spa in Phoenix. Other accounts state that is was in Beverly Hills, California. In any case, the narration is set in […]
Abstraction IITitle: Abstraction II Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score SAMPLE:
The purpose of education“The purpose of education is to keep a culture from being drowned in senseless repetitions, each of which claims to offer a new insight.” — Harold Rosenberg, American writer, educator, philosopher and art critic. Harold Rosenberg, “On the New Cultural Conservatism”, Partisan Review, 1972, vol. 39, no. 3, p. 444. Digitally archived at http://archives.bu.edu/collections/partisan-review/search/detail?id=326096, accessed […]
Lullaby for BerkeleyTitle: Lullaby for Berkeley Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano duet Level: Piano I – Level 1 (5 finger hand position, left and right hands) Product medium: PDF score & MP3 accompaniment track SAMPLES: (Audio sample of accompaniment track only)
Bassoon and pianoMusic is for me to play“You claim that I write monstrosities which only the composer can play. What if they were meant only for the composer?” Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji to his friend Peter Warlock. Cited at: Wikipedia
Schumann chasing a girlSchumann once attended a masquerade during the carnival of 1830, in company with his friend Rosen, for the purpose of paying some attention to a pretty but otherwise insignificant girl.He knew that she would be present at the ball, and, as a pretext for approaching her, put a poem in his pocket.Fortune favored him: he […]
The forgotten aspect of music“One of things that’s been forgotten in music for a long time is the ability to be nakedly emotional”. David Lang, composer Cited in “When Opera Is New and Unproved”, Anne Midgette, The Washington Post, 7 September 2008.
Music which never leaves‘”Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory.” Sir Thomas Beecham Speech, c.1950, quoted in The Sunday Times, 16 September 1962
Steering the audience’s tasteThe following advice appeared in the British Journal the Musical Times in January 1879: A young student wishes us to tell him what to do under the following circumstances: He has been carefully educated in music, for which he has considerable aptitude and an intense love; he is an efficient pianist, and knows most of […]