The current state of the recording industryFounder Klaus Heymann, founder of the successful NAXOS label, on the current state of the classical music recording industry: “We can’t live off CD sales anymore,” says the German-born Heymann, 75, speaking by phone from his base in Hong Kong. When Naxos began, Heymann proved that you could make money selling tens of thousands of […]
Meditation IIComposer: Greg SmithTitle: Meditation IIInstrumentation: PianoProduct medium: PDF scorePrice: $3 Sample: Your user agent does not support the HTML5 Audio element.
Pavel Kolesnikov on historical instrumentsFor me, one of the ultimate goals of a performance is to make pieces come across as something new, something unexpected and fresh. As soon as you start working with historical instruments, you are jeopardising this aspect. It is very difficult to get away from that; some performers manage it magically, but I don’t see […]
Music stirred him“Music had stirred him like that. Music had troubled him many times. But music was not articulate. It was not a new world, but rather another chaos, that it created in us.” – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Grey.
Reverie IIReverie II Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano (left hand) Product medium: PDF score
Inspiration“Our happiness in this world depends on the affections we are able to inspire.” – Duchess Prazlin Cited at QuotationsBook
Liszt’s account of a performance by ChopinFranz Liszt described one of Chopin’s concerts in the Gazette musicale, May 2 1841. Last Monday, at eight o’clock in the evening, M. Pleyel’s rooms were brilliantly lighted up; numerous carriages brought incessantly to the foot of a staircase covered with carpet and perfumed with flowers the most elegant women, the most fashionable young men, […]
Saint-Saens on Bach and Mozart“What gives Sebastian Bach and Mozart a place apart is that these two great expressive composers never sacrificed form to expression. As high as their expression may soar, their musical form remains supreme and all-sufficient.” – Camille Saint-Saëns, from a letter to Camille Bellaigue, 1907 Cited in: Fisk, Josiah (ed.) (1997) Composers On Music: Eight […]
A lock of Beethoven’s hairOnce a devoted admirer, wife of a Vienna pianist, longed for a lock of the composer’s outrageously unkempt hair, and asked a friend to get her one. At his suggestion, Beethoven, who was a practical joker of boorish capabilities, sent her a tuft from the chin of a goat. The trick was discovered, and the […]
Brahms’ reaction to Wagner’s MusicBrahms attended a Wagner concert in Vienna: All through the concert Johannes sat in stony silence. At the close, when everyone was applauding vigorously, he still made no move or comment. Finally his companion – beside himself with enthusiasm – cried: “What music! Wasn’t it marvellous?” The composer raised his eyebrows a little. Then he […]
