The cleansing power of music“Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water-bath is to the body.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, American physician, lecturer and author.
George Sand on Chopin’s compositional process“His creation was spontaneous and miraculous. He found it without seeking it, without forseeing it. It came on his piano suddenly, complete, sublime, or it sang in his head during a walk when he was impatient to play it to himself. But then he began the most heart-rending labor I ever saw. It was a […]
The code of honor in great art“In higher art, only that is worth being presented which has never before been presented. There is no great work of art which does not convey a new message to humanity; there is no great artist who fails in this respect. This is the code of honor of all the great art, and consequently in […]
Philosophy“Philosophy is doubt.” – Michel Eyquem de Montaigne, French writer Rosenberg, Max (1955) Introduction to Philosophy. New York: Philosophical Library, p. 14.
Teach Me Your Ways, O Lord – Psalm 24 (25)Title: Teach me your ways, O Lord Text: Psalm 24 (25):4-9 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part Sample:
It is cruel that music should be so beautiful“It is cruel, you know, that music should be so beautiful. It has the beauty of loneliness and of pain: of strength and freedom. The beauty of disappointment and never-satisfied love. The cruel beauty of nature, and everlasting beauty of monotony.” Benjamin Britten
Vladimir Horowitz on encores”You see,” he said, ”I have a very substantial program, and after a substantial program, you can’t play a substantial encore. You play a little … ” at this, he strummed the air with his fingers, tinkling an imaginary piano. ”It is,” he said, ”anticlimactic.” Clyde Haberman, “3,500 Japanese Applaud Horowtiz for 14 Minutes”, The […]
Bach’s preferred instrumentJohann Sebastian Bach’s preferred to play the viola when conducting an orchestra. Source: Siblin, Eric (2009) The Cello Suites. Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin, p. 216.
Old into newAn old thing becomes new if you detach it from what usually surrounds it. — Robert Bresson, French filmmaker J. Butler, Star Texts: Image and Performance in Film and Television, Detroit, Wayne State University Press, 1991, p. 170.
Individuality“I may not be better than other people, but at least I’m different.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau – Franco-Swiss philosopher and writer.
