“The present time has to a great extent liberated itself from symphonic form – from formalism. This started when the concert halls became empty, because that form has nothing to do with human beings. I believe that the present time is progressing.” Jean Sibelius, to Jussi Jalas, 17th July 1946 Cited at: www.sibelius.fi [accessed 31 […]

In modern life electricity plays a great part.  Sometimes it is used destructively – sometimes creatively – but there is another power which is like electricity, only far more subtle and penetrating.  This power is all-pervading.  It is omnipresent.  If we understood this power we would know the secret of the magical influence of music.  […]

Gustav Mahler recalled: After an illness, Bruckner was ordered by his doctor to take a daily hip-bath.  Loath to waste time, he would take music paper and compose while in the tub.  While absorbed in his work one day, the mother of Rudolf Kryzanowski, one of his pupils, knocked at the door.  “Come in!” called […]

“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.

Title: Intermezzo, op. 118, no. 2Composer: Johannes BrahmsArranger: Greg SmithInstrumentation: Cello and pianoProduct medium: PDF score and part  

Isaac 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 […]

Title: Lullaby for Berkeley Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano duet Level: Piano I – Level 1 (5 finger hand position, left and right hands) Product medium: PDF score & MP3 accompaniment track SAMPLES: (Audio sample of accompaniment track only)

In 2024, Julius Asal released an album that interwove works of Scriabin and Scarlatti. He stated: …in finding a composer from another era who is totally different in style and aesthetics, then finding a new ‘room’ where they meet, I felt that perhaps they share an inner space through their miniature pieces and their quantity […]

“Art is the symbol of the two noblest human efforts: to construct and to refrain from destruction.” Simone Weil, French philosopher & mystic. Simone Weil, The Pre-War Notebook (1933-1939), published in First and Last Notebooks (1970) edited by Richard Rees.