Vocal and choralSee also Sacred Music
A monkey on his shoulderCellist Walter Joachim spend some time in Calcutta, India. He recalled: “I bought a monkey with which to amuse myself. We played. He was sitting on my shoulders for hours when I was practising.” Joachim practised at least one or two movements of a Bach suite. “I started my day usually with Bach or a […]
Abstract art“The more horrifying this world becomes, the more art becomes abstract.” Paul Klee, Swiss painter Cited at QuotationsBook
Form your own interpretationI have often made the point in masterclasses that students should not listen to lots of recordings of a piece they are learning. I’m always a little horrified when I hear a student say, “My teacher told me to learn the Chopin G minor Ballade, so I went to the library and took out eight […]
Men of genius“Men of genius are often dull and inert in society; as the blazing meteor, when it descends to earth, is only a stone.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1849), Kavanagh, London: George Slater, p.49. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=i8ENAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA1#v=onepage&q&f=false, accessed 4 September 2021.
A concise rehearsalHans Knappertsbusch (1888-1965) was a German conductor. However, he had a dislike of rehearsals. Karajan recalled: One time he was going over Tchaikovsky’s Fifth with the Vienna Philharmonic. He came to the second movement, with the horn solo, and said, “Let’s start.” He did a few bars, stopped, and said, “See you this evening. You […]
Ravel’s fashion senseRavel was always particular about his sense of fashion. As Léon-Paul Fargue recalled: Even when he was wasted by illness, Ravel never appeared unkept even among his closest friends. All his life he kept the perfect, discriminating taste which led him to match his braces to his blue or pink silk shirts, much to the […]
The double life of an artistPeople are mistaken thinking that the creative artist uses art to express what he feels at the very moment of experience. Joy and sorrow are feelings expressed retrospectively. Without any particular cause for rejoicing I can be immersed in a mood of happy creativity and, conversely, I can produce, when cheerful, a piece saturated in […]
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 […]
Musicians’ response to violenceThis will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before. — Leonard Bernstein, 25 November 1963 Christopher Buchenholz, “An Artist’s Response to Violence”, Leonard Bernard Office, https://leonardbernstein.com/about/humanitarian/an-artists-response-to-violence. Accessed 18 March 2022.
