Schumann studied with Dorn, the conductor at the civic theatre. Dorn recalled: Having completed exercises in figured-bass realization, chorale harmonization, and canon, teacher and student moved on to double counterpoint. Intrigued by the mysteries of this discipline, and reluctant to tear himself away from his desk, Schumann once requested that his lesson take place in […]

Harpsichordist  Jane Chapman performs both early music and Avante music, including using techniques to use distortion on the harpsichord! “Many early music people are interested in contemporary music, too, and many composers are also interested in early music instruments because they don’t have the baggage of the [classical and romantic periods]. Increasingly, younger generation composers […]

“I like honesty and sincerity; and I maintain that an artist should not be shabbily treated.” – Beethoven, in a letter to C. F. Peters, 5 June 1822 E. Anderson, Letters of Beethoven (1961), cited in Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. United Kingdom, Oxford, OUP Oxford, 2014.

Rodney Greenberg describes a side of George Gershwin’s “romantic side”: He wrote a little waltz-song, which he would sing and play to his current dating partner.  It was, in effect, what his friend Kitty Carlisle (who later married playwright Moss Hart) described as his “mating call”, because he left a blank space in the lyrics […]

“[Art] certainly takes us some place unobtainable. We can go on to say that it enriches our lives – as it has my own. There are many classical musicians I’ve met who are, in my opinion, snobs. They are only involved in certain types of music, seeing nothing beyond ‘classical music’. I think this is […]

“Inspiration is merely the reward for working every day!” – Charles Baudelaire (French poet).  According to Roland-Manuel, Ravel would often recite this phrase.  Source: Nichols, Roger (1987) Ravel Remembered.  London: Faber & Faber, p. 143.

“Why are jazz apprenticeships so vital in the first place? For one thing the music essentially models a community, with every ensemble thriving on communication, a code of ethics and an implicit grasp of roles. Jazz is also still a young music, with about a century of precedent, imperfectly captured on record and poorly served […]

Brahms was rehearsing his F minor piano quintet. But when they reached the Andante, the strings played too fast to suit Brahms. This had happened once before in an early rehearsal of the same work, and the composer had discovered a tactful way of handling the situation.  Instead of criticizing, he called: "Just a moment, […]

Title: Blessed are they who hope in the Lord (setting ii) Text: Psalm 1:1-2, 3, 4, 6 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part SAMPLE:

The Eighteenth Weimar Classicists’ (e.g., Goethe, Shiller) conception of art expanded past the arts themselves, but also embraced all elements of society.  John Armstrong states: The aim of art is to ennoble us, to make us whole and balanced; then we can engage maturely and sensibly  in political processes.  The aim of their “classical art” […]