Leopold Stokowski conducted the American premier of Berg’s opera Wozzeck in 1930 (a joint effort of The Philadelphia Orchestra, the Phildelphia Grand Opera, and Curtis Institute).  Abram Chasins recalls a rehearsal: I attended his second rehearsal with the orchestra in the pit and singers on the stage.  After some twenty minutes of singing and acting, […]

“If I could express the same thing with words as with music, I would, of course, use a verbal expression. Music is something autonomous and much richer. Music begins where the possibilities of language end. That is why I write music.” Jean Sibelius, in an interview with Berlingske Tidende, 10th June 1919. Cited at: www.sibelius.fi […]

> Title: Tally Ho Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Duet Level: Piano I – 1.1 (five finger position with movement to the 6/4 position) Product medium: PDF score and MP3 accompaniment track SAMPLES: (Audio sample of accompaniment track only)

“When teaching, light a fire, don’t fill a bucket.” – Dan Snow, television presenter. Cited at QuotationsBook  

Hannes was not always solemn – far from it!  He could be as full of fun and wild pranks as any boy.  With Christian he worked out a scheme which they both found hugely entertaining.  They would knock at the door of a house where, perhaps a century before, some illustrious citizen of Hamburg had […]

“…the nature of music is inherently social. Blackburn argues, ” … we need to remind ourselves that music in itself does not exist. Despite evidence to the contrary (scores, analytical charts, music stores, CD shelves, etc.) music exists only in performance. … It is therefore a social and political act.” The performance of music corresponds […]

“The advice I am giving always to my students is above all to study the music profoundly.  Because the music is like the ocean, and the instruments are little or bigger islands, very beautiful for the flowers and trees, or the contrary.” Andrés Segovia, guitarist.  Cited in: Cited in: Kimball, K., Petersen, R., Johnson, K. […]

“You see behind me a symphony orchestra.  Every single one of the instruments has an entirely different background and history; they come from different places …; they’ve had different developments; they sound different… And so, the next time your soul sings, assailed with some sort of horrid indication that people can’t get along together, please […]

If you will become possessed of this faith you will not need to bother about your success or failure, for success will come.  You will not need to be anxious about the results, and will work joyfully and peacefully, knowing that right thoughts and right efforts will inevitably bring about right results. — James Allen […]

“Scriabin isn’t the sort of composer whom you’d regard as your daily bread, but is a heady liqueur on which you can get drunk periodically, a poetical drug, a crystal that’s easily broken.” -Sviatoslav Richter, pianist Monsaingeon, Bruno (2001). Sviatoslav Richter: Notebooks and Conversations. Princeton University Press, p.267 Cited at: Wikipedia