At a concert in London in December 1911, Rachmaninoff was received to great acclaim: perhaps a little too much from the orchestra's view point, who wanted to play the rest of their program: The London Philharmonic Concert given on November 7, provided an object lesson in this study of the relation of applause to encores.  […]

“It’s a very reactionary viewpoint and I’m slightly ashamed, but I find it very difficult to access contemporary music. I am not prejudiced, but my work in tonal music leads me to believe nothing can be organic if it doesn’t have a [sense of] “home.”  This idea of belonging, or home, can’t be an intellectual […]

Often at the end of the day Gaby [Debussy’s lover] would discover that they had a little money left over and then they would go out to a café, or circus, or to watch a billiards match. Debussy was very fond of the game. At the circus he loved the clowns and was as excited […]

Poet, you are no liar. The world that you imagine is the real one. The melodies of the harp alone know truth, and in this life they can be our only true guides. Cavafy, “The Poet and the Muse”

Title: Beauty Around Us Composer: Greg Smith Based on text by: Bernhard Severin Ingemann Instrumentation: Piano (easy) Product medium: PDF score     Related products:     – Beauty Around Us (hymn version)     – Beauty Around Us (full piano version)     – Beauty Around Us (mp3) SAMPLE:

It is the function of art to bring to us emotions, thoughts, states of mind and heart which are larger and more exalted and more intense than those we can produce ourselves, but which we can still recognize as possible within the compass of our imagination, still lying within our capacity for thinking and feeling. […]

“There is also in this music an extraordinary sense of control over the passage of time; a moment will be held still as if suspended, and then released, with a rush.  Einstein has told us that time is relative, flexible and elastic; I have noticed these qualities whenever I have tried to play to the […]

The Polish composer Karol Szymanowski wrote of the French composer Maurice Ravel in 1925: Whether he writes a “Rapsodie espagnole”, “Mélodies grecques”, or the almost Viennese “La Valse”, he always remains one of the foremost fascinating representatives of the genius of his race.  He assembles all the fundamental elements of that most beautiful culture in […]

“Arthur Rubinstein was standing in the lobby of a concert hall proudly watching the audience filing in to hear one of his recitals.  Finally, when the last one had gone in, Rubinstein made a move to enter.  An usher blocked his way.  ‘Sold out, mister’, he said, and to reinforce his words he pointed to […]

American composer Aaron Copland discusses the influence of Jazz on his musical style: was a very important influence at one time. I wrote a Piano Concerto in 1927 which was largely based on jazz materials. Jazz, of course, is for us a very typical American musical expression, which we have not so successfully been able […]