Music exists only in a passing of time, racing past us like the mid-nineenth-century trains Ruskin so hated. It is utterly non-fixed, and to focus on one moment is to destroy the whole. It is a forest that we have to pass through, not a single tree that we can contemplate or capture. But, if hearing and seeing beauty have different timetables they both require a sort of repetition in order to be fully appreciated: music needs to be heard many times, and the visual world needs multiple, if consecutive, seconds of looking. Only in such repetition perhaps can we grasp or hold onto beauty.
S. Hough, Rough Ideas: Reflections on Music and More, London, Faber & Faber, 2019, p. 225.
– Stephen Hough
Appreciating beauty
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Big Business
Title: Big Business (silent film soundtrack) Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium:PDF score (31 pages) BACKGROUND: Film: Directors: James W. Horne & Leo McCarey Starring: Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy Year of release: 1929 Synopsis: Two salesmen are trying to sell Christmas trees in california. The customers, however, are not so keen. Who would […]
Wexford Carol (SATB and organ)Title: Wexford Carol Text: 12th century Irish Composer: 12th century Irish, arr. Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Related products: – Wexford Carol – SATB and piano (PDF score) Product medium: PDF score and parts Sample:
Bad effects of music“By and large, though, there are few, if any, bad side effects of music, and music can often work where no medication can.” – Oliver Sacks Cited in: Inge Kjemtrup, “The power of music therapy”, Pianist, Issue 59, April-May 2011. Warners Group Publications, p.66.
The power of critics“Critics sometimes say, about this or that new work – it should betaken up by all our major orchestras and recorded. It never is. Critics have great power, but they have no power.” Ned Rorem (2000) Lies: A Diary 1986-1999. Cambridge: MA: Da Capo Press, p.27.
A hunchLogically, a hunch makes as much sense as saying, horses have tails; therefore, all tails have horses.” But in the zany world of films you don’t explain hunches — you just live and die by them. Frank Capra (1971) The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography. Macmillan, p. 123.
The significance of the individual “You are an extremely valuable, worthwhile, significant person even though your present circumstances may have you feeling otherwise.” – James Newmann, American mathematician
Hope“Hope is the dream of a soul awake.”— French proverb. R. A. Krieger, Civilization’s Quotations: Life’s Ideal, New York, Algora Publishing, 2002, p.151.
A carriage of flowers for TchaikovskyTchaikovsky’s favourite flower was lilies of the valley. The local musical society at Tiflis was extremely enthusiastic to have the presence of Tchaikovsky at a gala concert of his works at the Opera House: Ippolitov-Ivanov had thought of everything, even finding out by devious means what his favourite flower was. This flower did not grow […]
Blue FlemingoTitle: Blue Flemingo Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score SAMPLE:
Schumann as a studentSchumann studied with Dorn, the conductor at the civic theatre. Dorn recalled: Having completed exercises in figured-bass realization, chorale harmonization, and canon, teacher and student moved on to double counterpoint. Intrigued by the mysteries of this discipline, and reluctant to tear himself away from his desk, Schumann once requested that his lesson take place in […]