E. T. A. Hoffmann wrote in 1813 that instrumental music is the most romantic of all the arts  – one might almost say, the only genuinely romantic one – for its sole subject is the infinite.  The lyre of Orpheus opened the portals of Orcus – music discloses to man an unknown realm, a world […]

“I cannot tell you how much I love to play for people. Would you believe it – sometimes when I sit down to practice and there is no one else in the room, I have to stifle an impulse to ring for the elevator man and offer him money to come in and hear me.” […]

Title: Behind the Screen (silent film soundtrack) Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score (45 pages) Background: Written by: Vincent Bryan, Charlie Chaplin, Maverick Terrell Starring: Eric Campbell, Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance Film released: 1916 Sample:

“I have believed the best of every man. And find that to believe is enough to make a bad man show him at his best, or even a good man swings his lantern higher.” – William Yeats, Deirdre

Chopin is the greatest of them all, for through the piano alone he discovered everything. — Claude Debussy P. Kildea, Chopin’s Piano, London, Allen Lane, 2018, p. 40.

“Without music, life would be a mistake.” — Friedrich Nietzsche, in Twilight of the Idols

“When you put creativity into everything, everything becomes available to you.” – Robert Rodriguez, filmmaker Cited in: Nathalie Sejean, “30 Piece of Advice from Robert Rodriguez to Lead a Creative Life”, Mentorless, 4 September 2015, https://www.mentorless.com/2015/09/04/30-piece-of-advice-from-robert-rodriguez-to-lead-a-creative-life/, accessed 28 October 2020

The great singer, Cuzzoni, refused to sing an air of his the way he wished it. He seized her, and, dragging her to a window, threatened to throw her out, thundering, “I always knew you were a devil, but I’ll show you that I am Beelzebub, the prince of devils.” Hughes, Rupert (2004) The Love […]

At the core of Beethoven’s “Diabelli” Variations, an esoteric and astonishing piano piece lasting some 50 minutes, is one of the intriguing mysteries of music history. Why did Beethoven, during the difficult last decade of his life, when he was deaf, chronically ill and often in financial straits, become nearly obsessed with writing an extensive […]

Poet, you are no liar. The world that you imagine is the real one. The melodies of the harp alone know truth, and in this life they can be our only true guides. Cavafy, “The Poet and the Muse”