Overheard in a New York street car:— Average Young Man (to neighbour): “Everything they say about Paderewski is true. He’s a perfect genius. Why, he played fourteen pieces and did not once look at the programme. Yet he played straight ahead and never once forgot what piece was to come next. I tell you the man who can do that is a dandy.”
Musical Times, January 1896. Cited in: Scholes, Percy (1947) The Mirror of Music. London: Novello and Company, vol. 1, p. 322.
Paderewski, the dandy
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Encouraging talent
“What greater pleasure is there is life than giving young and beautiful talent a little lift in the direction of the stars though they will never reach them.” Sir Clifford Curzon – English pianist Pianist, No. 59, April-May 2011, Warner Group publications, p.10.
It’s not hard work“Talent labors, genius creates.” Florestan (one of Schumann’s characters) Robert Schumann,Gesammelte Schriften über Musik und Muisker (Leipzig, 1854), IV. Cited in Weiss, Piero & Taruskin, Richard (2008) Music in the Western World: A History in Documents. California: Thomson, p. 306.
Emerging from suffering“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” – Kahlil Gibran, Broken Wings
Bernstein’s television appearancesBernstein is intent on demonstrating that the inevitable doesn’t just happen. It comes from intense work. To show this, he restores a handful of Beethoven’s discarded sketches to the score so that we can hear how the Fifth would have sounded if Beethoven had retained his first (or second or 10th) thought. Some discarded passages […]
Structure and disharmony“I need to start from the assumption that the world of spirit is ordered, structured by its very nature, that everything which causes disharmony in the world, all that is monstrous, inexplicable, and dreadful … And the formula for world harmony is most likely linked not to the blurring of evil but to the fact […]
The ghost of PaganiniThe Belgian violinist Eugène Yasÿe frightened Busoni by playing the Bach Chaconne and Paganini Caprices on a kit violin in the darkened passages of a hotel. ”It was like the ghost of Paganini, purposely exaggerating all the worst mannerisms of the typical virtuoso, and Busoni could never forget the sight of Ysaÿe’s vast bulk and […]
Achieving great things“To achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan and not quite enough time.” – Leonard Bernstein
Puccini’s rain machinePuccini custom built a villa in the seaside resort of Viareggio. Here, Puccini had a “rain machine that sprinkled water from the trees, beneath which he would stand with an open umbrella, cooling himself from the summer heat. Source: Wilson, Conrad (2008) Giacomo Puccini. London: Phaidon Press, p.205.
Lullaby for BenTitle: Lullaby for Ben Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score
Behind the ScreenTitle: Behind the Screen (silent film soundtrack) Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score (45 pages) Background: Written by: Vincent Bryan, Charlie Chaplin, Maverick Terrell Starring: Eric Campbell, Charles Chaplin, Edna Purviance Film released: 1916 Sample: