Form and content“I think that one way toward a more intelligent and involved appraisal is through a connection with the pieces, and that one way to develop that connection is to talk about what the pieces mean to people who have spent a lot of time with them: the content, if you will. This approach can also […]
The reach of art“Art — reaches out to one specific person (even and especially if that person is imaginary.” Todd Brison, “A Warning Letter to All Writers”, Medium, 25 August 2020, https://medium.com/better-marketing/a-warning-letter-to-all-writers-df00d53f8795, accessed 4 September 2020.
A subtle way of changing the tempoBrahms was rehearsing his F minor piano quintet. But when they reached the Andante, the strings played too fast to suit Brahms. This had happened once before in an early rehearsal of the same work, and the composer had discovered a tactful way of handling the situation. Instead of criticizing, he called: "Just a moment, […]
Prayer of Thanksgiving to the TrinityTitle: Prayer of Thanksgiving to the Trinity Text: St. Catherine’s Dialogue on Divine Providence Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Concert band (Flt. 1 & 2, Cl. 1 & 2, Alt. Sax., Ten. Sax., Bar. Sax., Trpt 1 & 2, trb, tub., perc.) Product medium: PDF score and parts Related products: – Prayer of Thanksgiving to the […]
Music which never leaves‘”Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory.” Sir Thomas Beecham Speech, c.1950, quoted in The Sunday Times, 16 September 1962
Music is richer than words“If I could express the same thing with words as with music, I would, of course, use a verbal expression. Music is something autonomous and much richer. Music begins where the possibilities of language end. That is why I write music.” Jean Sibelius, in an interview with Berlingske Tidende, 10th June 1919. Cited at: www.sibelius.fi […]
The inexpressible depth of musicThe inexpressible depth of all music, by virtue of which it floats past us as a paradise quite familiar and yet eternally remote, and is so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from […]
Abstraction XIVTitle: Abstraction XIV Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score Related products: – Abstraction XIV (mp3)This item is currently not in print SAMPLE:
The personality of George GershwinIsaac Goldberg, a friend of George Gershwin, described the composer’s personality: HE was as simple, as unaffected, as modest, and as charming a youth as one could desire to meet. There was nothing about him that was forbidding. He wore his unprecedented celebrity as lightly as if it were a cane – that cane which […]
Beethoven and foodWhen he [Beethoven] came to Vienna, he knew nothing at all of the fine art of cooking. He cared little about good food, his favorite dish being a mess of macaroni with plenty of cheese on top. He liked, too, the simplest kind of stew, and fish from the Danube. Ignaz Seyfried reported that Beethoven […]
