Liszt on Beethoven’s music, in a letter to Wilhelm von Lenz in 1852: To us musicians the work of Beethoven parallels the pillars of smoke and fire which led the Israelites through the desert, a pillar of smoke to lead us by day, and a pillar of fire to light the night, so that we […]

Dearest Stroll! good old troll! you sit in your hole drunk as a Mole! – But you’re touched in your soul by music’s sweet flow. – Mozart, in a letter to Anton Stoll Cited in: Spaethling, Robert (2000) Mozart’s Letters; Mozart’s Life.  London: Faber and Faber, p.438.

Franz Liszt owned Beethoven’s Broadwood piano.

“Personality is to a man what perfume is to a flower.” – Charles M. Schwab, The Ten Commandments of Success

In writing, habit seems to be a stronger force than either willpower or inspiration. Consequently there must be some little quality of fierceness until the habit pattern of a certain number of words is established. There is no possibility, in me at least, of saying, “I’ll do it if I feel like it.” One never […]

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 […]

“You don’t get harmony when everybody sings the same note.” Doug Floyd, editorial editor of The Spokesman Review

When we create something, whether it’s a one-woman show, a video animation, a poem, a song, whatever—we’re taking what’s inside of us and stepping it out. Now it can be shown or heard. Now it can be experienced, transmitted. Now it can be shared. When it’s shared, parts of us that were once invisible, hidden, […]

In the ninteenth century, the piano was not only regarded as a musical instrument but as a part of the decor a room. An article in The Musical Times in February 1893 describes some possible applications: Placed near a bay window, it shuts in the cosiest lovers’ next imaginable. Soft-cushioned window seats that have room […]

Title: The Adventurer (Silent film soundtrack) Composer: Greg Smith Performer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: MP3 download     Related products:     – The Adventurer PDF score BACKGROUND: FILM:     Written by: Vincent Bryan, Charlie Chaplin & Maverick Terrell     Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Eric Campbell     Director: Charlie Chaplin     Year of release: 1917 TRACK LISTING AND SAMPLES: Track […]