Beethoven moved often, and his landlords were not always keen to have him back. While he was working on the Ninth Symphony in 1923, Beethoven couldn’t stand his present lodgings in Hetzendorf, as the landlord, Baron Pronay, constantly bowed to him when they met.He sought lodgings where he had previously stayed in Baden.  The landlord […]

My life involves endless hours of repetitive and frustrating practising, lonely hotel rooms, dodgy pianos, aggressively bitchy reviews, isolation, confusing airline reward programmes, physiotherapy, stretches of nervous boredom … punctuated by short moments of extreme pressure …perhaps most crushingly, the realisation that I will never, ever give the perfect recital. It can only ever, with […]

Wagner attended a performance of Messiah at Exeter Hall in London with a chorus of 700 voices. He recorded in his autobiography: It is here that I came to understand the true spirit of English Protestantism. This accounts for the fact that an oratorio attracts the public far more than an opera. A further advantage […]

An account by R. L. Stevens (1775): When Handel was blind, and attending a performance of the Oratorio Jephtha, Mr [William] Savage, my master, who sat next to him said, “This movement, sir, reminds of me of some of old Purcell’s music.” “G got te teffel”, said Handel, “if Purcell had lived, he would have […]

Many studies are now discovering that learning a musical instrument is something positive in itself – a discipline that helps a person to acquire skills of co-ordination. concentration, and perseverance. It shares these with sport, of course, but there is more. What makes playing a musical instrument worthy of special attention is that its physical […]

The theatre director Rouben Mamoulian describes Gershwin’s playing: George at the piano was George happy … like a sorcerer celebrating his Sabbath.  He would draw out a lovely melody like a golden thread, then juggle it, twist it and toss it around mischievously, weave it into unexpected intricate patterns, and hurl it into a cascade […]

“In all types of creative work the worker and his object become one, man unites himself with the world in the process of creation.” — Erich Fromm

Vaughan Williams was commissioned to revise the hymn book of the Anglican Church: Hymns Ancient and Modern. This was amounted to a huge task, but beneficial to his compositional outlook. The study of folk music to ensure the “best” versions of tunes was stressed the importance of musical activity in all spheres of music. He […]

Title: Turn to the Lord in your need (Setting II) Text: Psalm 68 (69): 14, 17, 30-31, 33-34, 36, 37 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part     Sample:

Robert Schumann aspired to be awarded a doctorate degree. On January 31 1840, Robert Schumann asked a friend to appeal to the University of Jena to give him an honorary degree, or set him a degree to pass, on the grounds of: “My sphere of action as an editor on a high-class paper, which has […]