Just as we checked the tuning …In 1853, Brahms went on a tour of German cities with the Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi. In the town of Celle, they were scheduled to play Beethoven’s Sonata in c minor (op. 30, no. 2): but it was found that the piano in the hall was tuned a half tone too low. Reményi refused to […]
Encouraging talent“What greater pleasure is there is life than giving young and beautiful talent a little lift in the direction of the stars though they will never reach them.” Sir Clifford Curzon – English pianist Pianist, No. 59, April-May 2011, Warner Group publications, p.10.
My God, My God, Why Have You Abandoned Me? – Psalm 21 (22)Title: My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Text: Psalm 21 (22): 8-9. 17-20. 23-24. R. v. 2 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and organ Product medium: PDF score and part Sample:
Give music to those who love it“Music must be given to those who love it. I want to give free concerts; that’s the answer.” -Sviatoslav Richter, pianist Bruno Monsaingeon: Introduction to Sviatoslav Richter — Notebooks and Conversations p. XX. Cited at: Wikipedia
Orchestra/Concert bandConcert band
There’s a crack in everythingThere is a crack, a crack in everythingThat’s how the light gets in. Leonard Cohen, “Anthem Related: “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in”: The story of Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem”
Baroque they are notBetween 1910 and 1938 the Austrian violin virtuoso Fritz Kreisler produced some arrangements of works by Boccherini, Martini, Couperin, Vivaldi and Porpora. They were positively achieved by the crticis. In 1935, Kreisler revealed that there were not arrangements at all, but in fact works which he had written from scratch. Suddenly critic’s attitudes to the […]
Write over improviseIf Heaven has bestowed on you a fine imagination, you will often be seated at your piano in solitary hours, as if attached to it; you will desire to express the feelings of your heart in harmony, and the more clouded the sphere of harmony may perhaps be to you, the more mysteriously you will […]
No art is equal to music“I firmly believe, nor am I ashamed to assert, that next to theology no art is equal to music; for it is the only one, except theology, which is able to give a quiet and happy mind. This is manifestly proved by the fact that the devil, the author of depressing care and distressing disturbances, […]
Understanding the world“If we understood the world, we would realize that there is a logic of harmony underlying its manifold apparent dissonances.” Jean Sibelius, in conversation with Gustav Mahler, 1907. Cited in: Henry Thomas & Dana Lee Thomas Living Biographies of Great Composers. Garden City (NY): Blue Ribbon, [1940] 1946) p. 309. [Cited at Wikiquote.]
