“I am not satisfied with any man who despises music. For music is a gift of God. It will drive away the devil, and makes people cheerful. Occupied with it, man forgets all anger, unchastity, pride, and other vices. Next to theology, I give music the next place and highest praise.” – Martin Luther Cited […]

Hannes was not always solemn – far from it!  He could be as full of fun and wild pranks as any boy.  With Christian he worked out a scheme which they both found hugely entertaining.  They would knock at the door of a house where, perhaps a century before, some illustrious citizen of Hamburg had […]

For me, inspiration comes from a bunch of places: desperation, deadlines… A lot of times ideas will turn up when you’re doing something else. And, most of all, ideas come from confluence — they come from two things flowing together. They come, essentially, from daydreaming. . . . And I suspect that’s something every human […]

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 […]

A Review written in El Alcance of the cellist Pablo Cassals: His bow, sometimes sweet as a voice from heaven, at other times vibrant and robust, produces such a sonorous combination of voices and tones that it seems that the body of his violincello is the magic secret of sublime harmonies capriciously transformed at the […]

How do you rate your music? We’re not good musicians.  Just adequate. Then why are you so popular? Maybe people like adequate music. – Interviewer and the Beatles. Cited in: Jarski, Rosemarie (2005) Great British Wit.  London: Ebury Press, p. 203.

“The possibilities of creative effort connected with the subconscious mind are stupendous and imponderable. They inspire one with awe.” – Napoleon Hill, American author Quotations Book  

Long before the tune Danny Boy even had words the tune existed as an Irish folk melody.  A study in 1979 revealed that Londonderry Air was related to Aislean an Oigfear (The Young Man’s Dream), which had been collected in 1792 from harpist Denis O’Hampsey  He was over ninety at the time and had played […]

“I cannot tell you how much I love to play for people. Would you believe it – sometimes when I sit down to practice and there is no one else in the room, I have to stifle an impulse to ring for the elevator man and offer him money to come in and hear me.” […]

Some conductors put all the emphasis on the melodic line, while others are fanatics about rhythm, but there are very few conductors who are uniquely able to look at the score and hear every part before it actually happens. With the very best of conductors, it’s as though there are two performances going on simultaneously. […]