It’s my apartment and I’ll play if I want to

Prokofiev and his family moved into a small top floor-apartments in Paris.  Prokofiev spent much time practicing a revised version of his second piano concerto (which was to be premiered 8 May 1924).  The apartment manager demanded that Prokofiev cease playing.  His wife Lina recalled Prokofiev’s response:

All right then, you don’t want to hear my music, but I have the right to do whatever I like in my own apartment.  Instead of playing music I’ll start hammering boxes together.”  Placing a box on the floor, he started banging on it with a hammer.  That’s how it ended – apparently the neighbours threw up their hands and gave in.

Cited in: Jaffé, Daniel (1998) Sergey Prokofiev.  London: Phaidon Press Limited, p.93.

Posted

in

by

Greg

Tags:

Featured Content

True greatness
Life is made up of little things. It is very rarely that an occasion is offered for doing a great deal at once. True greatness consists in being great in little things. – Charles Simmons (1852) A Laconic Manual and Brief Remarker: Containing Over a Thousand Subjects.  North Wrentham: Charles Simmons, p. 315.  Digitally archived […]
The path of an artist
“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving. A good artist lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants.” – Lao Tzuo, Chinese philosopher. Cited at: QuotationsBook
Advance Australia Fair (Peter Dodds McCormick)
Title: Advance Australia FairComposer: Peter Dodds McCormickArranger: Greg SmithInstrumentation: SATB and pianoProduct medium: PDF score and part Available from:Sheet Music Direct
Shaw on the cello
In the nineteenth century, the cello was regarded as an important solo instrument.  George Bernard Shaw wrote in 1890 “I am not fond of the violoncello: ordinarily I had as soon hear a bee buzzing in a stone jug.” Siblin, Eric (2009) The Cello Suites.  Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin, p. 71.
Opportunities
No man can tell what the future may bring forth, and small opportunities are often the beginning of great enterprises. —  Demosthenes, Ad Leptinem, 162 Harbottle, Thomas Benfield (1897) Dictionary of Quotations (Classical).  London: S. Sonnenschein & co, p. 51.  Digitally archived at https://archive.org/details/dictionaryofquot00harbiala/page/511/mode/2up, accessed 12 September 2021. 
The Blue Danube (Strauss)
Title: The Blue Danube (op. 314) Composer: Johann Strauss Arranger: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Cello and piano Product medium: PDF score and part (32 pages) Sample:
Feeling a bond with your instrument
“Research in Finland has uncovered the benefits of feeling a bond with your instrument. 51 per cent of musicians surveyed reported that they were united with my instrument/voice during performance that there is no difference between us. When this bond is complete, performers may enter in a state of intense concentration, causing them to lose […]
American Western Film Soundtracks
“Morricone brought the electric guitar to the western. The great thing, though, about the electric guitar in the western is that there were no electric guitars, but somehow he did it so committedly that nobody ever questioned it. It was only much later people started to say, ‘How come there’s an electric guitar part there?’ […]
The career of a musician compared to other arts
The career of a musician out to be — it is, actually, and in many ways — different from the careers of artists in other fields of art.  All comparisons of the other arts with music are necessarily somewhat superficial.  The art of music needs, essentially, not much contact with social groups, or concern with […]
Nikolaj Zainder performs Elgar’s Violin Concerto on the original violin
In 2010, Violinist Nikolaj Znaider performed Elgar’s Violin Concerto on the same 1741 violin in which Kriesler premiered the work on a hundred years before. Znaider was not worried about comparisons to Kriesler’s original performance: “he way I think of music is that it really is something that is played in the moment – it’s […]