When my students compose, I prefer them to be mistaken if they must make mistakes, but to remain natural and free rather than wishing to appear other than what they are. I remember a day when Stravinsky was dining here. He took his neighbor at the table by the lapels, violently! His neighbor crushed, said to him, “But Monsieur Stravinsky, I don’t know why we’re talking like this, I agree with you.” And Strainvsky exclaimed furiously, “Yes, but not for the right reasons, so you are wrong.”
Mademoiselle: Conversations with Nadia Boulanger, ed. by Bruno Monsaingeon, trans. by Robyn Marsack. Cited in: O. Strunk, Source Readings in Music History: The Twentieth Century, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1998, p.218.
You can have good or bad reasons for searching. If you search in order to hide your inadequacy, you’re wrong. If you are looking in order to say what you really want to say, you’re right. And so it’s very important for a teacher first of all to let his pupil play as he wishes, write as he wishes; and then to be ruthless on questions of discipline.
— Nadia Boulanger
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Beethoven distracted
A student of Beethoven’s, Ferdinand Ries, went on a walk with his teacher in the country: Beethoven muttered and howled the whole time, without emitting any definite notes. When I asked him what he was doing he answered, “A theme for the last allegro of the sonata [the Appassionata] has occurred to me.” When we […]
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 […]
Communication with the audienceIgor Stravinsky contemplates the ultimate goal of an artist versus reality: “Art postulates communion [between the artist and the audience], and the artist has an imperative need to make others share the joy which he experiences himself. But in spite of that need, he prefers to direct and frank opposition to apparent agreement which is […]
The influence of musicConductor Leopold writes: There are millions who find solace in music – it opens for them the sun-bathed gates of inspiration – through music they know that behind the sordid, grim surface of life there nevertheless exists an ideal and external Beauty. Music powerfully stimulates the growth in us of impulses we had never suspected […]
Ganymed (Schubert)Title: Ganymed (Op. 19, No. 3)Composer: Franz SchubertArranger: Greg SmithInstrumentation: Cello and pianoProduct medium: PDF score and part Sample:
Gramophone: no substitute for live performanceBritish conductor Thomas Beecham was not too impressed with early recording technology (the gramophone): It was put to him that for people who lived in remote districts, far from orchestral concerts, the gramophone was an alternative: "It is no alternative to this," he said, waving his arm towards the hall, where the orchestra was waiting […]
Impromptu (Sibelius)Title: Impromptu (Op. 97, no.5) Composer: Jean Sibelius (arr. Greg Smith) Instrumentation: Trombone and piano Product medium: PDF score and part
The King’s EntranceTitle: The King’s Entrance Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano duet Level: Piano I – 1 (five finger position) Product medium: PDF score and MP3 accompaniment track (Audio sample of accompaniment track only)
In Memory of Those in ParadiseTitle: In Memory of Those in Paradise Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Cello and piano Product medium: PDF score SAMPLE:
Schnabel on recordingHaving spent five days recording five Beethoven sonatas and two concertos, Schnabel wrote to his wife: This week was an ordeal, a torture chamber. “What does not kill me makes me stronger,” says Nietzsche. Hopefully (probably) this is true. I had no idea of how outrageous a process the recording on discs could be. Like […]