American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim has released a book Finishing the Hat: The Collected Lyrics of Stephen Sondheim, with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes.  The following is an extract from interview an article on Sondheim by Emma Brockes: Initially a maths student at Williams College in Massachusetts, the young Sondheim took […]

In a letter to his friend Abbé Joseph Bullinger, Mozart jokes about the musical environment in Salsburg. One of his subjects is the search for an additional final principle singer. “I can hardly believe it!” he wrote “A female singer!? When we have so many already! – and all of them first rate…” (1). Mozart […]

Gershwin was often the life of a party, entertaining on the piano.  He said: “The trouble is, when I don’t play at a party I don’t have a good time.” Cited in: Greenberg, Rodney (2008) George Gershwin.  New York: Phaidon Press, p.47.

What makes a great song great is not its close resemblance to a recognizable work. Writing a good song is not mimicry, or replication, or pastiche, it is the opposite. It is an act of self-murder that destroys all one has strived to produce in the past. It is those dangerous, heart-stopping departures that catapult […]

Composer: Greg SmithTitle: Meditation IIInstrumentation: PianoProduct medium: PDF scorePrice: $3   Sample: Your user agent does not support the HTML5 Audio element.

As to what concerns the knotty question in general of how far instrumental music may go in the representation of thoughts and events, many are here too anxious in their attitude. We are certainly wrong if we believe that composers set out pen and paper to realize the miserable intention of expressing, describing, or painting […]

“What we play is life.” Louis Armstrong, Jazz musician Cited at: Satchmo, “Louis Armstrong Quotes and Tributes.” https://www.satchmo.com/louisarmstrong/quotes.html, accessed 6 September 2021.

“The point is, art never stopped a war and never got anybody a job. That was never its function. Art cannot change events. But it can change people. It can affect people so that they are changed…because people are changed by art – enriched, ennobled, encouraged – they then act in a way that may […]

In mid-nineteenth century England, whistling was a common source of entertainment and as part of the general reception to a piece of music. An article in March 1854 in The Musical Times reported: We were sorry to hear the vile practice of whistling again carried on to some extent at the concert; were the well-meaning […]

In 1777, Mozart visited Heir Stein in Ausburg (1). According to Mozart, Stein had stated that no-one has ever played his Piano Forte as well as I have, and, besides, I always keep correct time. They are all wondering about that. They simply can’t believe that you can play a Tempo rubato in an Adagio, […]