It happens because you identify so completely with the composer, you’ve studied him so intently, that it’s as though you’ve written the piece yourself. You completely forget who you are or where you are and you write the piece write there. You just make it up as though you never heard it before. Because you become that composer. I always know when such a thing has happened because it takes me so long to come back. It takes four or five minutes to know what city I’m in, who the orchestra is, who are the people making all that noise behind me, who am I? It’s a great experience and it doesn’t happen often enough.
Leonard Bernstein. Cited in: Green, Barry (2003) The Mastery of Music: Ten Pathways to True Artistry. New York: Broadway Books, pp. 3-4.
Bernstein on immersive performance
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“Didn’t you like it?”
Leonard Bernstein and Mildred Spiegel attended the Boston Symphony Orchestra season in 1933. They sat, she remembers, in the second balcony “under one of the male Greek nude statues.” One evening, during a standing ovation for the orchestra’s music director, Serge Koussevitzky, Lenny “just sat there” clapping very softly. “What’s the matter,” I asked, “didn’t […]
I am the Lord your God – Psalm 80 (81)Title: I am the Lord, your God. Text: Psalm 80 (81): 10-11ab, 12-13, 14-15 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part Sample:
Forever I will Sing the Goodness of the Lord – Psalm 88 (89)Title: Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord (Setting I) Text: Psalm 88 (89) Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and organ Related products: – Forever I will sing the goodness of the Lord (SATB, brass, and organ) Product medium: PDF score and parts SAMPLE:
Tchaikovsky and the village childrenTchaikovsky lived in a village Maidanovo. When Tchaikovsky would go for works, he would also be hailed by groups of village children. As Sofya Nikolayevna recalled: “They had discovered the times he went out and, as he always liked to gave them something, sweets or a coin, they used to lie in wait for him.” […]
It must be resolvedBach, a master of harmony and counterpoint, would not settle for imperfect sounds, no matter where he was. Johann Reichardt recalled: Johann Sebastian Bach once came into a large company while a musical amateur was sitting and improvising at a harpsichord. The moment the latter became aware of the presence of the great master, he […]
Never bore your listenersConductor and pianist Seymour Lipkin (born 1928) recalled piano lessons with his teacher, Bohemian-born pianist Rudolf Serkin: He said so many memorable things to me that I continue to pass on to my students. A few examples: “The worst crime you can commit as an artist is to bore your listeners”; for another, “People who […]
The line and the harmonyPhrases have their own topography—they move forward with the line but also remain wedded to the ground with each change of harmony, and this is where the battle lies, why each piece of music grapples with its own destructive potential, why beauty is never what it appears to be. — Simon Tedeschi S. Tedeschi, Fugitive, […]
Sondheim on the language of musicAmerican composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim has released a book Finishing the Hat: The Collected Lyrics of Stephen Sondheim, with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes. The following is an extract from interview an article on Sondheim by Emma Brockes: Initially a maths student at Williams College in Massachusetts, the young Sondheim took […]
Easy StreetTitle: Easy Street (Silent film soundtrack) Composer: Greg Smith Performer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: MP3 soundtrack Related products – PDF score TRACK LISTING AND SAMPLES: TRACK TITLE LENGTH SAMPLE 1. A new beginning 4:07 2. Easy Street 7:06 3. Law and order 1:22 4. Aid where aid is due 1:33 5. Poverty and […]
BarcarolleTitle: Barcarolle Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Duet Level: Piano I – level 2 (several five finger positions, left and right hands) Product medium: PDF score & MP3 accompaniment track SAMPLE: (audio of accompaniment track only)