Music is at once the product of feeling and knowledge, for it requires from its disciples, composers and performers alike, not only talent and enthusiasm, but also that knowledge and perception which are the result of protracted study and reflection.
Hector Berlioz, A Travers Chants.
Cited in I. Lipsius, Thoughts of Great Musicians, London, Augener, 1886, p. 9, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951002299295b&view=1up&seq=6.
Music: the product of feeling and knowledge
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Beethoven’s handwriting
Franz Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee (1786-1868) was a composer who wanted lessons with Beethoven. Beethoven would only look at his compositions. Schnyder often dined in the Mehlgrube, because he knew that Beethoven often went there at the same time in the evening. One lovely spring night Schnyder, on entering the restaurant, saw his friend Beethoven […]
How to get an audienceJohannes Brahms and the violinist Eduard Remenyi had been concertizing to great success in Cello and Lüneberg. By this time the two musicians were so elated over their success that they decided to try a concert in the city of Hildesheim entirely on their own. They had no one there to herald their coming, write […]
A Tear Hangs There (Tchaikovsky)Composer: Pytor Il’yich Tchaikovsky (arr. Greg Smith) Title: A Tear Hangs There (Слеза дрожит), Op. 6. No. 4 Instrumentation: Cello and piano Product medium: PDF score and part Sample:
Rachmaninoff on interpretationAs the talented student grows older he must seek within himself his interpretation. Does he wish to know how to play the cantilena of Beethoven or Chopin? He must feel it himself! Talent is feeling, the feeling that every player experiences in his innermost consciousness… It takes years of work to understand and think out […]
Bernstein on immersive performanceIt happens because you identify so completely with the composer, you’ve studied him so intently, that it’s as though you’ve written the piece yourself. You completely forget who you are or where you are and you write the piece write there. You just make it up as though you never heard it before. Because you […]
Finding the voice of PiazzollaI was writing symphonies, chamber music, string quartets. But when Nadia Boulanger analyzed my music, she complained that she couldn’t find any Piazzolla in there. She could find Ravel and Stravinsky, maybe Bela Bartok or Hindemith, but never Piazzolla. The truth is I was ashamed to tell her that I was a tango musician, that […]
Liszt on the pianoIn its span of seven octaves [the piano] embraces the range of an orchestra; the ten fingers of a single man suffice to render the harmonies produced by the combined forces of more than 100 concerted instruments. We make arpeggios like the harp, prolonged notes like wind instruments, staccatos, and a thousand other effects which […]
All the Ends of the Earth – Psalm 97 (98)Title: All the ends of the earth Text: Psalm 97 (98):1-6. R. v.3 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part SAMPLE:
Figaro and an egg“I always have a hard-boiled egg. A three-minute egg. Do you know how I time it? I bring it to the boil and then conduct the overture to The Marriage of Figaro. Three minutes exactly.” Sir John Barrirolli Cited in: The Music Lover’s Quotation Book. Ed. Kathleen Kimball, Robin Peterson & Kathleen Johnston. Toronto (Canada): […]
Dividing the concert takingsIn 1866 Brahms and the violinist Joachim gave a concert tour through Switzerland. One of their concerts was in Aarau. After the program, Brahms and Joachim went to a tavern, where they opened several bottles of the best vintage Swiss wine, including the popular vin mousseux of Lausanne. Brahms felt decidedly genial. “How did we […]