Bacharach’s teachers

Burt Bacharach was a student of Darius Milhaud, Bohusalv Martinu, and Henry Cowell.

Bacharach’s hits included Magic Moments, Walk on by, The Look of Love, and Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head.


Featured Content

Who needs four strings anyway?
In his work Le Streghe (The Witches), the virtuoso violinist Paganini would use scissors to reduce the number of strings on his violin throughout the piece, until he would be left playing the work on just the G string. Source: Haylock, Julian, “Nicolo Paganini”, Classic FM, December 2009, p. 41.
Performers
Determination not to be hurried
“Nothing can be more useful to a man than the determination not to be hurried.” – Henry David Thoreau
Arthur Schnabel
“Artur Schnabel is a pianist unlike any other. One is conscious in listening to him of a powerful and original mind revealing unsuspected meanings and complications in music as familiar as Brahm’s Intermezzi and Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Sonata. His tone is as a rule dry in anything above a piano, but a sudden touch of pedal […]
In the event of a lack of singers
In a letter to his friend Abbé Joseph Bullinger, Mozart jokes about the musical environment in Salsburg. One of his subjects is the search for an additional final principle singer. “I can hardly believe it!” he wrote “A female singer!? When we have so many already! – and all of them first rate…” (1). Mozart […]
Handel’s dinner for three
Handel certainly liked to eat: A story is told of him that he once ordered up enough dinner for three. Noting that the servant dawdled about, Handel demanded why; the servant answered that he was waiting for the company to come, whereupon Handel stormed, in his famous broken English, “Den print up der tinner prestissimo. […]
Imagination disposes and creates
“Imagination disposes of everything; it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which is everything in this world.” — Blaise Pascal, French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. Ramage, Craufurd Tait (1866) Beautiful Thoughts from French and Italian Authors.  Liverpool: Edward Howell, p.232. Digitally archived at https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=nDErAAAAYAAJ&hl=en_AU, accessed 12 September 2021.
Recipe for success
“A man can succeed at almost anything for which he has unlimited enthusiasm.”— Charles M. Schwab, American businessman Peale, Norman (2003) Enthusiasm Makes the Difference. New York, Fireside, p.4
How not to get an audience
Satie’s ballet Relâche (1924) had trouble pulling a crowd: the title translates as “this performances is cancelled”. Source: Lawrence, Christopher (2001) Swooning.  Sydney: Random House, p.70.
Quasi Dance II
Title: Quasi Dance II Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Cello and piano Product medium: PDF score and part SAMPLE: