For me, inspiration comes from a bunch of places: desperation, deadlines… A lot of times ideas will turn up when you’re doing something else. And, most of all, ideas come from confluence — they come from two things flowing together. They come, essentially, from daydreaming. . . . And I suspect that’s something every human […]

“Blessed are the weird people–poets, misfits, writers, mystics…painters & troubadours–for they teach us to see the world through different eyes.” — Jacob Nordby Jacob Nordby (2016) Blessed are the Wierd: A Manefesto for Creatives, Boise: Manifesto, Publishing House, p.8.

By 1790, Haydn has become dissatisfied with life at Eszterhaza.  On 9th February he wrote: Well! I sit in my wilderness; forsaken, like some poor orphan, almost without human society; melancholy, dwelling on the memory of past glorious days.  Yes; past, alas! And who can tell when these happy hours may return?  Those charming meetings? […]

(i) Humoresque I (ii) Song (iii) Little Waltz (iv) Humorous March (v) Impromptu “Never write an unnecessary note. Every note must live”.1 — Sibelius The miniature is the perfect genre to master this philosophy. Sibelius wrote the Opus 97 Bagatelles in 1920, in between his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies. The quirky nature of these Bagatelles […]

American composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim has released a book Finishing the Hat: The Collected Lyrics of Stephen Sondheim, with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes.  The following is an extract from interview an article on Sondheim by Emma Brockes: Initially a maths student at Williams College in Massachusetts, the young Sondheim took […]

Before the time of Bach, keyboardists would often only use the middle three fingers of each hand and tended to keep their hands flat. Bach taught his students under the new principle of using all the fingers. Beethoven asked his pupils to curve the hand. Source: Marek, George (1969) Beethoven: Biography of a Genius. London: William […]

"I would rather write 10,000 notes than one letter of the alphabet."' Beethoven.  Letter, 28 November 1820.  Cited in: Kelly, Henry & Foley, John (1998) Classic FM: Musical Anecdotes.  London: Hodder & Stouhgtan, p.68.

Title: I will sing of your salvation Text: Psalm 70 (71): 1-6, 15, 17 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part Sample:

In Halina Rodzinski’s book Our Two Lives she describes how on the very first day Artur Rodzinski came to assist Stokowski in 1929, his boss immediately restyled his hair without a part and combed straight back from the brow.  “That’s how a conductor should look,” said Stokowski, pointing Rodzinski at a mirror in his dressing […]

“Technique is communication: the two words are synonymous in conductors.” – Leonard Bernstein, conductor, composer and pianist. Cited at QuotationsBook.