“It’s a very reactionary viewpoint and I’m slightly ashamed, but I find it very difficult to access contemporary music. I am not prejudiced, but my work in tonal music leads me to believe nothing can be organic if it doesn’t have a [sense of] “home.” This idea of belonging, or home, can’t be an intellectual concept, it has to be recognisable in terms of sound or tones and I don’t see the replacement for that in atonal music.”
Pianist Murray Perahia. Cited in: Nick Shave, “Mull Over Beethoven”, BBC Music, July 2009, p.26.
Murray Perahia
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Communicating one’s dreams
“Whoever communicates to his brothers in suffering the secret splendour of his dreams acts upon the surrounding society in the manner of a solvent and makes all those who understand him, often without their realisations, outlaws and rebels.” Pierre Quillard (symbolist poet), 1892.
Learn the rules like a pro“Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.” Attributed to Pablo Picasso, painter
What we play“What we play is life.” Louis Armstrong, Jazz musician Cited at: Satchmo, “Louis Armstrong Quotes and Tributes.” https://www.satchmo.com/louisarmstrong/quotes.html, accessed 6 September 2021.
Language at its most powerfulLanguage is at its most powerful when it disturbs, not by arriving at insights/understandings, but by creating possibilities. – Thomas Ogden T. Ogden, Reveries and Interpretations: Sensing Something Human, Lanham, Roman & Littlefield, 2004, p. 219.
I need a better razorHaydn reached London in the opening days of 1791. He passed his first night at the house of Bland, the music publisher, at 45 High Holborn, which now, rebuilt, forms part of the First Avenue Hotel. Bland, it should have been mentioned before, had been sent over to Vienna by Salomon to coax Haydn into […]
The AdventurerTitle: The Adventurer (Silent film soundtrack) Composer: Greg Smith Performer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: MP3 download Related products: – The Adventurer PDF score BACKGROUND: FILM: Written by: Vincent Bryan, Charlie Chaplin & Maverick Terrell Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Eric Campbell Director: Charlie Chaplin Year of release: 1917 TRACK LISTING AND SAMPLES: Track […]
The first soundtrack: Snow WhiteThe first soundtrack to be commercially released was Disney’s 1938 film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. The songs were written by Frank Churchill (music) and Lary Morey (lyrics). The score was written by Churchill and Leigh Harline, with some additional music by Paul Smith. Although Churchill and Morey originally wrote 25 songs for the […]
The line and the harmonyPhrases have their own topography—they move forward with the line but also remain wedded to the ground with each change of harmony, and this is where the battle lies, why each piece of music grapples with its own destructive potential, why beauty is never what it appears to be. — Simon Tedeschi S. Tedeschi, Fugitive, […]
There’s one way to get him to playPeople often begged him to play a little air on the violin, but he refused great lords and his fellow de-bauchers alike. The only person who succeeded in making him play was the Marshal de Grammont. He had a footman called La Lande who later became one of the best violinists in Europe. After a […]
Oysters and champaign before a concert“Sibelius and his wife Aino were in Gothenburg for a concert, the composer disappeared shortly before he was due to conduct. Aino found him, immaculately dressed in his white tie and tails, drinking champagne and eating oysters at a nearby cafe. Returning with him to the venue, she thought her husband was fine until he […]