“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): […]

Title: God mounts his throne (Setting II) Text: Psalm 46 (47): 2-3, 6-7, 8-9 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and organ Related products: – God mounts his throne (Setting II) – SATB, brass, and organ Product medium: PDF score and part SAMPLE:

”You see,” he said, ”I have a very substantial program, and after a substantial program, you can’t play a substantial encore. You play a little … ” at this, he strummed the air with his fingers, tinkling an imaginary piano. ”It is,” he said, ”anticlimactic.” Clyde Haberman, “3,500 Japanese Applaud Horowtiz for 14 Minutes”, The […]

‘The following is an account of the conductor Hans von Bülow: Young composers whom Bülow decided to feature in the concerts were encouraged to present themselves at the rehearsals, and even to direct the orchestra themselves, whenever it was deemed to be helpful.  We can only admire the resourcefulness of the budding symphonist who, in […]

Anton Bruckner developed a condition call numeromania that compelled him to count everything – cathedral gables, stars, leaves on the trees; even the number of bars in his lengthy symphonies. Source: Lawrence, Christopher (2001) Swooning.  Sydney: Random House, p.70.

“There is no failure except in no longer trying.” – Elbert Hubbard, American author, artist, and philosopher

Leopold Stokowski gave the Philadelphia premiere of Ravel’s Bolero as an “encore” at a Friday afternoon concert. The newspaper critics had all left the hall, and so once again word of mouth had to prove its effacy, for at the Saturday night concert, after the last number, the audience applauded with unusual fervour and would […]

Johannes 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 […]

"Art isn't your pet – it's your kid.  It grows up and talks back to you."  Joss Whedon, screenwriter