“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 it’s to come to terms with this that one studies.”
Pianist Murray Perahia. Cited in: Nick Shave, “Mull Over Beethoven”, BBC Music, July 2009, p.27.
Context and beauty
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Art cannot change events. But it can change people.
“The point is, art never stopped a war and never got anybody a job. That was never its function. Art cannot change events. But it can change people. It can affect people so that they are changed…because people are changed by art – enriched, ennobled, encouraged – they then act in a way that may […]
Bright Sunny DayTitle: Bright Sunny Day Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Duet Level: Piano I – level I (5 finger position, left and right hands) Product medium: PDF score & MP3 accompaniment track (Audio sample of accompaniment track only)
Beauty Around Us – Bernhard Severin IngemannTitle: Beauty Around Us Composer: Greg Smith Based on text by: Bernhard Severin Ingemann Instrumentation: Piano (easy) Product medium: PDF score Related products: – Beauty Around Us (piano version) – Beauty Around Us (easy piano version) – Beauty Around Us (mp3) SAMPLE:
Skye Boat SongTitle: Skye Boat Song Composer: Scottish folk melody (arr. Greg Smith) Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score
Half a sonataSergei Prokofiev was once asked to give a piano recital. He declined, offering this explanation: “It would cost me half a sonata.” Source: Samuel, Prokofiev
Stokowski rebukesThe conductor Stowkoski was always in complete control of his orchestra: He never lost his tempoer with the orchestra, never raised his voice. On the contary, he would lower his voice for a subtle rebuke or a sarcastic comment. Schwar recalled Stokowski saying, “Second clarinet, don’t play notes – sing them.” To the first violist, […]
Freedom for music“In order for music to free itself, it will have to pass over to the other side – there where territories tremble, where the structures collapse, where the ethoses get mixed up, where a powerful song of the earth is unleashed, the great ritornelles that transmutes all the airs it carries away and makes return.” […]
Golliwog’s Cakewalk from Children’s Corner Suite (Debussy)Title: Golliwog’s Cakewalk (from Children’s Corner Suite) Composer: Claude Debussy Arranger: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Cello quartet Product medium: PDF score and parts Sample:
The Great Collapse (The Boy and the Heron)Composer: Joe Hisaishi Arranger: Greg Smith Title: “The Great Collapse”, from The Boy and the Heron Instrumentation: Piano Solo Available from Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus.
A simple requestHumorists Ilf and Petrov described a concert by Rachmaninoff In New York (November 1935): The night we went to hear him he appeared tall, bent, and thin, with a long sad face, his hair closely clipped; he sat down at the piano, separated the folds of his old-fashioned back swallowtail, adjusted one of his cuffs […]