When my students compose, I prefer them to be mistaken if they must make mistakes, but to remain natural and free rather than wishing to appear other than what they are. I remember a day when Stravinsky was dining here. He took his neighbor at the table by the lapels, violently! His neighbor crushed, said to him, “But Monsieur Stravinsky, I don’t know why we’re talking like this, I agree with you.” And Strainvsky exclaimed furiously, “Yes, but not for the right reasons, so you are wrong.”
Mademoiselle: Conversations with Nadia Boulanger, ed. by Bruno Monsaingeon, trans. by Robyn Marsack. Cited in: O. Strunk, Source Readings in Music History: The Twentieth Century, New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1998, p.218.
You can have good or bad reasons for searching. If you search in order to hide your inadequacy, you’re wrong. If you are looking in order to say what you really want to say, you’re right. And so it’s very important for a teacher first of all to let his pupil play as he wishes, write as he wishes; and then to be ruthless on questions of discipline.
— Nadia Boulanger
Searching for expression
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The technique of conducting
“Technique is communication: the two words are synonymous in conductors.” – Leonard Bernstein, conductor, composer and pianist. Cited at QuotationsBook.
Whatever we are faced with, people will continue to createGus Fairbairn (aka Alabaster dePlume) on the challenges of the 2020 pandemic: There is an invitation for me to respond to this pandemic with frustration, but it has allowed me the time to not spend all summer playing festivals and actually focus on my own creativity. It’s all gold. Go forth in the courage of your love as […]
Abstraction IXTitle: Abstraction IX Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Brass quintet (2 trumpets in B-flat, Horn in F, trombone, bass trombone) Product medium: PDF score and parts SAMPLE:
Why Israel still shuts Wagner outSince its establishment in 1948, Wagner’s music has customarily not been played in Israel’s opera houses and concerts halls due to Wagner’s anti-Semitism. Terry Teachout writes: “The case of Israel is, of course, unique. I don’t think that Wagner’s anti-Semitism would justify removing his works from the repertoire of, say, the Seattle Opera or […]
Jan Lisiecki on interpretationMy approach is to sit with the score and make my decisions about what Andante means or what piano means in a certain context; often you go back to recordings and find that nobody’s ever really played it that way. You ask yourself ‘Why is that? Did I misread or misinterpret something? Or is this […]
The potential of music to spread peaceA German proverb says: Bose Menschen haben keine Lieder (bad men don't sing) . It is not impossible that out of a tremendous movement of amateur community music a peace movement could spread over the world. Could it not be supported by our high dignitaries? Instead of the president of the United States solitarily playing […]
Be a work of art“One should either be a work of art, or wear a work of art.” Oscar Wilde, Phrases and Philosophies for the Use of the Young
The Ruffled KnightsTitle: The Ruffled Knights Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score
Blessed the People the Lord has Chosen (Setting II) – Psalm 32 (33)Title: Blessed the people the Lord has chosen (setting ii) Text: Psalm 32 (33) Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part SAMPLE:
The path of an artist“A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent upon arriving. A good artist lets his intuition lead him wherever it wants.” – Lao Tzuo, Chinese philosopher. Cited at: QuotationsBook