“Any Broadway musical would be lucky to include a single number this good.” — Janet Maslin, in The New York Times on Alan Menken/Howard Ashman’s “Part of Your World,” from The Little Mermaid.  Darryn King, “Alan Menken: The Man Who Relaunched Disney’s Fortunes with Songs,” The Sydney Morning Herald, 16 July, 2016. http://www.smh.com.au/good-weekend/alan-menken-the-man-who-relaunched-disneys-fortunes-with-hit-songs-20160714-gq5o6v.html. Accessed 16 July 2016.

“Writing and performing an opera, creating any work of art in a world of violence and ease, hunger and obesity, could seem to be an act of private withdrawal. But art isn’t about itself, it’s about how men relate to the world and each other … Asking artists to keep politics out of art is […]

Between 1911 and 1914, Nicolas Medtner stayed at Khlebnikovo, a house on the Osipov estate in the village of Trakhaneyevo. There were visits by the family, brothers Karl and Alexander and sister Sofiya, with their children. Karl’s daughter Vera brought her dachshund with her and would join her uncle Kolya [Nicolas] and Flix [Nicolas’ fox […]

Title: The Lord will bless his people with peace (Setting II) Text: Psalm 28 (29): 1-4. 9-10 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part Sample:

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Pianist Artur Schnabel was asked at a public forum why his repertoire was so restricted: My answer is that now I am attracted only to music which I consider to be better than it can be performed.  Therefore I feel (rightly or wrongly) that unless a piece of music presents a problem to me, a […]

Everybody tells you that the youth of today, whoever they are, have a short attention span, and you can’t give them anything decent. That’s complete crap. The youth of today, just like anyone else, like a good story and want to be transported, and to have an experience. They don’t want to be bored, so […]

The following advice appeared in the British Journal the Musical Times in January 1879: A young student wishes us to tell him what to do under the following circumstances: He has been carefully educated in music, for which he has considerable aptitude and an intense love; he is an efficient pianist, and knows most of […]

"I would rather write 10,000 notes than one letter of the alphabet."' Beethoven.  Letter, 28 November 1820.  Cited in: Kelly, Henry & Foley, John (1998) Classic FM: Musical Anecdotes.  London: Hodder & Stouhgtan, p.68.