I live in a world of my imaginationI confess that I live only in my surroundings and in myself. I can conceive of no greater pleasure than sitting in my chair at this desk and looking at the walls around me day by day and night after night. In these pictures I do not see what you see; in the trees outside […]
Columbine’s VeilTitle: Columbine’s Veil Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score Background: Pierrot, separated from his love Columbine, is weeping in his room. Overcome with sorrow, he falls asleep in the corner. Some friends of Pierrot come to visit. When they eventually find him, they fetch a nearby pianist and suggest waking Pierrot with […]
Easter Prayer – St. Gregory the GreatTitle: Easter Prayer Text: St. Gregory the Great Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and organ Product medium: PDF score and parts SAMPLES:
The source of inspirationFor 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 […]
Haunted SpooksTitle: Haunted Spooks (silent film soundtrack) Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score (47 pages) Background: Written by: H. M. Walker Starring: Harold Lloyd, Mildred Davis, Wallace Howe, Sammy Brooks, William Gillespie, Mark Jones, Gaylord Lloy, Sam Lufkin, Ernest Morrison, Dee Lampton Directed by: Alfred J. Goulding & Hal Roach Film released: […]
A democratic orchestraIn 1920s Soviet Russia, musicians experimented mirroring the political state: “Just as the government didn’t need a tsar, so the orchestra didn’t need a director,” says Pyotr Aidu of the School of Dramatic Art, which will revive the long-dead form at a premiere concert Thursday. Miriam Elder, “1920s Orchestra Without a Conductor Revived”, The Moscow […]
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 […]
I Shall Live in the House of the Lord – Psalm 22 (23)Title: I Shall Live in the House of the Lord Text: Psalm 22 (23) Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Related settings: – The Lord is my shepherd (Psalm 22; Greg Smith) – SATB and piano (PDF score) Product medium: PDF score and part Sample:
Busoni on inventionI came to think that every notation is already the transcription of an abstract invention. From the instant the pen takes hold of it, the idea loses its original feature. … The invention (Einfall) becomes a sonata, a concerto: it is already an arrangement of the original. From this first transcription to the second, the […]
BeautyThe academic teaching on beauty is false. We have been misled, but so completely misled that we can no longer find so much as a shadow of a truth again. The beauties of the Parthenon, the Venuses, the Nymphs, the Narcisusses, are so many lies. Art is not the application of a canon of beauty, […]