An art gathers new material usually by an original rejection of old formulae, a gesture of negation. At the beginning, this gesture is conscious, defiant, it lacks any other reason for existence than the very healthy one that dogma is death. In the turmoil of growth and expansion, this negation and denial loses its identity as such, and is metamorphosed into a positive entity; the fruit of the gesture remains, and is welded into the body of the old material.
H. Pollack, Marc Blitzstein: His Life, His Work, His World, New York, Oxford University Press, p.36.
— Marc Blitzstein
New art and the old formulae
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Skepticism
“Great intellects are skeptical.” – Friedrich Nietzsche, Antichrist, 54. Digitally archived at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19322/19322-h/19322-h.htm, accessed 12 September 2021
Half a sonataSergei Prokofiev was once asked to give a piano recital. He declined, offering this explanation: “It would cost me half a sonata.” Source: Samuel, Prokofiev
A mushroom anyone?…everybody was possessed by the Russian passion for gathering mushrooms. Rivalries ran high, mushrooms were counted and compared, their beauty was discussed. Rachmaninoff was an early riser and often went alone for a walk in the woods. He used to return contented and start teasing (he was a great teaser). One day he badgered us […]
A dog with musical taste“Anton Bruckner had a chubby, fat pug dog named Mops,” Fritz Kreisler, a former pupil of Bruckner’s once recalled. “He would leave us with Mops munching our sandwiches while he himself hastened off to luncheon. We decided we’d play a joke on our teacher which would flatter him. So while the Meister was away, we’d […]
PerformersWaste not, want notWhile attending school in Lüneberg, J. S. Bach used to travel to Hamburg (50km away) to hear the organist of the Catharinekirche: J. A. Reincken. Marpurg describes how Bach, returning almost penniless to Lüneberg, once rested outside an inn; how someone threw two herring heads out on the rubbish heap; how Bach – a Thuringian, to […]
Lord, Send Our Your Spirit – Psalm 103 (104)Title: Lord, send out your spirit Text: Psalm 103 (104):1. 24. 29-31. 34. R.v.30 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SA and piano Product medium: PDF score and part Sample:
Man’s capacity“There is no man living who isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can do.” Henry Ford, American industralist Cited at: Quotations Book
Richard Bach on perseverance“A professional writer is an amateur who didn’t quit.” — Richard Bach, American writer Applewhite, Ashton; William R. Evans, Tripp Evans, Andrew Frothingham (2003) And I Quote. Macmillan. Macmillan.
Early music discovered on carvingA craftsman replicating large medallions has discovered medieval Scottish notation of instrumental music. The notation is sequences of 0s, Is and IIs. Barnaby Brown, a specialist in early Scottish music, notated that, “This discovery is potentially of great significance to our understanding of medieval and Renaissance instrumental music – the normally ‘unwritten’ practice of the elite court […]