“Composing is like driving down a foggy road toward a house.  Slowly you see more details of the house – the colour of the slates and bricks, the shape of the windows.  The notes are the bricks and mortar of the house.” – Benjamin Britten. Cited in: Jarski, Rosemarie (2005) Great British Wit.  London: Ebury […]

“It is by teaching that we teach ourselves, by relating that we observe, by affirming that we examine, by showing that we look, by writing that we think, by pumping that we draw water into the well.” —Henri Frederic Amiel.  Swiss philosopher, poet & critic. H. F. Amiel, Amiel’s Journal, trans. H. Ward, London, Macmillan […]

“Sibelius and his wife Aino were in Gothenburg for a concert, the composer disappeared shortly before he was due to conduct.  Aino found him, immaculately dressed in his white tie and tails, drinking champagne and eating oysters at a nearby cafe.  Returning with him to the venue, she thought her husband was fine until he […]

But weeds have this virtue: they are not easily discouraged; they never lose heart entirely; they die game. If they cannot have the best, they will take up with the poorest; if fortune is unkind to them today, they hope for better luck tomorrow; if they cannot lord it over a corn-hill, they will sit […]

You go to a great school not so much for knowledge as for arts and habits, for the habit of attention, for the art of expression, for the art of assuming at a moment’s notice a new intellectual position, for the art of entering quickly into another person’s thoughts, for the habit of submitting to […]

Title: 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)

The Russian pianist, Vladimir von Pachmann was known for his funny mannerisms: Everyone knows that the Russian pianist has funny ways of his own, which the public tolerate for the pleasure he affords them as an artist. On this occasion, we read, he remarked, first of all, “Too few people; I cannot play. This is […]

“Our modernized minds need to be musicalized. We have defied the intellect … and developed only half of man’s possibilities. There is no other human activity that asks for such a harmonious cooperation of “intellect” and “soul” as artistic creation, especially music.” Ernst Levy, Swiss composer, musicologist, pianist and conductor. Cited in: Kimball, K., Petersen, […]

A tiny 18th-century book has turned up in Hay-on-Wye containing the earliest known version of Sweet Molly Malone, almost a century older than Dublin’s unofficial anthem. Maev Kennedy, “Tart with a cart? Older song shows Dublin’s Molly Malone in new light”, The Guardian, 18 July 2010. Click here to view article

Taneyev was critical of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony. Tchaikovsky’s response ended with: “I can see you laughing as you read all of this, you sceptic and mocking-bird.  In spite of your great love of music it seems you still can’t believe that a man can express his inmost feelings in his compositions.  You just wait!” Cited […]