The potential of an artist“How important is it to catch up with yourself? There are enormous forces lurking in each person, but many people die without having discovered this. Of course it was clear at first glance that Mozart was a genius. But we don’t know whether anybody suspected the great gifts of the young Wagner. Nobody could guarantee […]
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.
Jan Lisiecki on ChopinSchumann described Chopin’s works as “cannons buried in flowers”. Contained in Chopin’s music are painful moments, suffering, longing and much drama. Similarly to Mozart, the external impression may be one of pure beauty, elegance, exuberance or joy but, deep down, there is something else entirely, a sort of imprecise discomfort, a certain malaise. The contrast […]
Men of genius“Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1849), Kavanagh, London: George Slater, p.49. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=i8ENAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false, accessed 4 September 2021.
Never use a scoreI never use a score when conducting my orchestra. Does a lion tamer enter a cage with a book on how to tame a lion? — Dimitri Mitropoulos, conductor Zographos, Achilleas (2017) Music and Chess. Milford: Russell Enterprises Inc.
Easter Prayer – St. Gregory the GreatTitle: Easter Prayer Text: St. Gregory the Great Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and organ Product medium: PDF score and parts SAMPLES:
Sondheim’s pass timesSondheim is a lover of games, and collects antique ones (many were destroyed in a fire that swept through the lower floors of the house in 1995). He has a passion for murder mysteries, puzzles (he once spent 18 months devising cryptic crosswords for New York magazine), word play and anagrams. His own name, he […]
Two paths for the future of classical musicGreg Sanders ponders the position of classical music and describes the need for it to catch up with culture, without simply “dumbing it down”: “Of course, I think that if we really understand current culture, we’ll want to go the other way, and make classical music smarter.” Greg Sanders, Arts Journal Blog, February 2, 2009. […]
The worker and his object“In all types of creative work the worker and his object become one, man unites himself with the world in the process of creation.” — Erich Fromm
What a difference an audience makesMozart was in Paris in 1778. He visited the duchess of Chabot, Elisabeth-Louise de la Rochefoucauld, wife of Louis-Antoine-Auguste de Rohan. Mozart described the visit in a letter to his father: A week went by without any reply, but she had informed me to see her in a week’s time, so kept my word and […]
