Leif Ove Andsnes on Beethoven“I feel a real need for Beethoven now. It’s such important and spiritual music: it gives you strength, it gives you comfort. It’s just great!” – Leif Ove Andsnes, pianist. Source: Jessica (2011) “Top of the World”, Pianist, Issue 60. p.13.
Mozart’s masterpieces“Mozart makes you believe in God – much more than going to church – because it cannot be by chance that such a phenomenon arrives into this world and then passes after thirty-six years, leaving behind such an unbounded number of unparalleled masterpieces.” Sir Georg Solti Source: Kelly, Henry & Foley, John (1998) Classic FM […]
The best of every man“I have believed the best of every man. And find that to believe is enough to make a bad man show him at his best, or even a good man swings his lantern higher.” – William Yeats, Deirdre
The Lord is Kind and Merciful – Psalm 102 (103)Title: The Lord is kind and merciful Text: Psalm 102 (103): 1-4, 9-12. R. v.8 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part Sample:
Bunking down in the PhilharmonicCellist Gregor Piatigorsky, after running into some problems with his accommodation, was spending a cold November day in the Tiergarten, Berlin, in 1923. Throughout the course of the day, he was approached by Paul Bose to play Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire. It began to rain. In Moscow it probably is snowing now, I thought absently, making […]
Mastery“Mastery passes often for egotism.” — Johanne Goethe, German author Johanne Goethe (1906) The Maxisms and Relfections. Translated by Bailey Saunders. New York: The Macmillan Company. Digitally archived at: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/33670/33670-h/33670-h.htm, accessed 12 Setpember 2021
Quasi Dance IITitle: Quasi Dance II Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Cello and piano Product medium: PDF score and part SAMPLE:
True greatnessLife is made up of little things. It is very rarely that an occasion is offered for doing a great deal at once. True greatness consists in being great in little things. – Charles Simmons (1852) A Laconic Manual and Brief Remarker: Containing Over a Thousand Subjects. North Wrentham: Charles Simmons, p. 315. Digitally archived […]
Scores and recordingsRecordings Scores Brass Brass ensemble Trombone Orchestra/Concert band Concert band Piano Piano solo Piano method Strings Cello and piano String ensemble Vocal and choral General Sacred Woodwind Bassoon
White ChristmasAccounts vary on where Irving Berlin wrote “White Christmas”. Berlin himself even recall differing circumstances on when it was penned. Some sources claim at was written at the poolside in Aizona Biltmore Resort and Spa in Phoenix. Other accounts state that is was in Beverly Hills, California. In any case, the narration is set in […]
