Transforming Bach’s Cantatas into an operaTheatre director Herbert Wernicke has taken six of Bach’s Cantatas dealing with the frailty of the human condition and presented them in a staging of mundane human activities. Albrecht Puhlmann, the general director of Stuttgart Opera, states that “From the woman with the baby to the coffin being carried out, life and death is being […]
Blessed Are They Who Hope in the Lord (Setting II) – Psalm 1Title: 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:
Violoncello piccoloA violoncello piccolo is a violin-sized instrument tuned like a cello. It is held horizontally, slung from a from a strap over the shoulder lika guitar. Some of Bach’s cantatas specifically written for this instrument. It is possible that Bach wrote the cello suites for the instruments (no instrument was specified on the manuscripts). Source: […]
The technique of conducting“Technique is communication: the two words are synonymous in conductors.” – Leonard Bernstein, conductor, composer and pianist. Cited at QuotationsBook.
Mozart on Craft“People are mistaken, if they think that my art has come easily to me. I assure you, dear friend, no one has devoted so much effort in the study of composition as have I. There is scarcely a famous master in must whose works I have not diligently, and often repeatedly, studied.” – Mozart, in […]
Any room for me?“Arthur Rubinstein was standing in the lobby of a concert hall proudly watching the audience filing in to hear one of his recitals. Finally, when the last one had gone in, Rubinstein made a move to enter. An usher blocked his way. ‘Sold out, mister’, he said, and to reinforce his words he pointed to […]
Growing up in a bell towerCzech composer Bohuslav Martinů was born and spent most of his childhood in a church tower in Polička, on the borders of Bohemia and Moravia. Martinů recalled that the panoramic view encapsulated “the vast and boundless space I am always searching for in my music.” Source: Calum MacDonald, “Bohuslav Martinů”, BBC Music, August 2009, p.44.
A hundred violins may play softer than oneJohn Holmes “reiterates that only with a large group can you get a truly soft sound. Sure, a solo fiddle can hold its own against a hundred fiddles: a hundred fiddles are never a hundred times louder than a solo at the same dynamic, since there’s no such animal as “a same dynamic,” or even […]
Abstraction IIITitle: Abstraction III Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Trombone and piano Product medium: PDF score and part SAMPLE:
Form your own interpretationI have often made the point in masterclasses that students should not listen to lots of recordings of a piece they are learning. I’m always a little horrified when I hear a student say, “My teacher told me to learn the Chopin G minor Ballade, so I went to the library and took out eight […]
