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Title: Ode I Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score SAMPLE: Your browser does not support the audio element.

Ravel, touring America in 1928, was approached by George Gershwin for composition lessons.  Ravel refused, stating “you would only lose your own spontaneity and end up by writing bad Ravel!” Cited in:  James, Burnett (1983) Ravel: His Life and Times.  New York: Midas Books, p.120

John E. Borland described in a paper of June 1897: It was customary to commence with a Bach prelude and fugue (usually perverted from one intended for the organ), a Beethoven sonata (choice limited to four or five), some Chopin pieces (there were about twelve orthodox ones to select from), and a Liszt rhapsody. These […]

“Some misprints remain on my scores, because for some reason I have always been in a rush to get the proofs to the publisher by the deadline. In the orchestral parts everything has usually been corrected.” Jean Sibelius, to Jussi Jalas, 27th July 1942 Cited at: www.sibelius.fi [accessed 31 Mar 2010].

“Satie said, ‘I want to make a play for dogs, and I [already] have the staging planned. The curtain rises to reveal a bone.’ Poor dogs! After all, it’s their first play. Later one will present more difficult shows to them, but one will always return to the bone.” – Jean Cocteau, playwright Cited in: […]

Humorists Ilf and Petrov described a concert by Rachmaninoff In New York (November 1935): The night we went to hear him he appeared tall, bent, and thin, with a long sad face, his hair closely clipped; he sat down at the piano, separated the folds of his old-fashioned back swallowtail, adjusted one of his cuffs […]

Title: Lullaby Composer: Greg Smith Performer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: MP3 recording     Related products:     – Lullaby (PDF score) SAMPLE:

Title: Ode IComposer: Greg SmithInstrumentation: PianoPerformer: Greg Smith (January 2010) Your browser does not support the audio element. Sheet music

A student of Rachmaninoff, Ruth Slenczynska, recalled: I remember how Rachmaninoff explained to me the problem of phrasing: he showed me an elastic band and stretched it slightly, then allowed it to bounce back; next, he stretched it beyond a certain point, and it snapped. He meant to say that no part of a musical […]