For me, inspiration comes from a bunch of places: desperation, deadlines… A lot of times ideas will turn up when you’re doing something else. And, most of all, ideas come from confluence — they come from two things flowing together. They come, essentially, from daydreaming. . . . And I suspect that’s something every human […]

Sergey Prokofiev was once evicted from his apartment for playing the same chord 218 times.  A tally was kept by the downstairs tenant. Source: Lawrence, Christopher (2001) Swooning.  Sydney: Random House, p.69.

Title: In Memory of  Those in Paradise   Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Cello and piano Product medium: PDF score SAMPLE:

In its span of seven octaves [the piano] embraces the range of an orchestra; the ten fingers of a single man suffice to render the harmonies produced by the combined forces of more than 100 concerted instruments. We make arpeggios like the harp, prolonged notes like wind instruments, staccatos, and a thousand other effects which […]

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Title: Abstraction IX Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Brass quintet (2 trumpets in B-flat, Horn in F, trombone, bass trombone) Product medium: PDF score and parts SAMPLE:

The piano technician, Franz Mohr, observed: Horowitz was consistent in all that he did. His rehearsal was always on Saturday at 4:00 p.m., his performance was on Sunday. And I always had plenty of time to prepare his piano for the concert. Of course Horowitz would have never stolen my preparation time in order to […]

Puccini was a very sociable man, quote often putting this before his composing.  Even when he was working hard, he maintained an active social life: With the opening of the 1894-1895 season not far way, Puccini began steady work on La Bohème in Torre.  But he also needed a place to relax, so his “second […]

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 […]

I. Prélude II. Menuet III. Claire de Lune IV. Passepied The term “bergamasque” refers to the ancient city of Bergame, located forty kilometres east of Milan. The character of its citizens (“rustic and clumsy”) was personified by a series of dances and the Italian comic character Harlequin (1572). This comic character is evident particularly in […]