“…all talent, all application will not suffice if one’s whole life is not directed towards being a mediator of great thoughts and feelings. Every deed, yes, every thought leaves its trace on the personality. One must live a life of purity in every detail, even down to the morsel one is putting into one’s mouth. […]

Ravel was very particular about how his works were performed.  Ravel always insisted that the tempo for Boléro should be moderate and rigorously maintained throughout.  He made a recording of that, too establishing his requirement.  Toscanini took it much faster and made an accelerando towards the end.  Ravel, who was in the audience, objected.  He […]

Title: 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:

Title: Cry out with joy and gladness Text: Isaiah 12:2-6 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano (unison verses) Product medium: PDF score and part SAMPLE:    

“Working to timings and synchronising your musical thoughts with the film can be stimulating rather than restrictive. Scoring is a limitation but like any limitation is can be made to work for you. Verdi, except for a handful of pieces, worked best when he was ‘turned on’ by a libretto. The most difficult problem in […]

“Learning makes a man fit company for himself.”   —  La Harpe Day, E. P. (1884) Day’s Collacon: An Encylopaedia of Prose Quotations.  International Printing and Publishing Office, p. 498.  Digitally archived at: https://books.google.com.au/books?id=Qo\_Mhkcu8iAC, accessed 8 September 2021. 

Title: Abstraction Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score Sample:

“Arensky is a man of remarkable gifts, but morbidly nervous and lacking in firmness—altogether a strange man.” Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, in a letter to N. F. von Meck, Frolovskoe, July 2nd (14th), 1890. Cited in Modest Tchiakovsky, The Life & Letters of Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, np., Outlook Verlag, 2018, p. 477.

“Enthusiasm is the greatest asset in the world. It beats money, power and influence.” Henry Chester

All this, my friend, will time provide, And of itself, itself will give; Soon as you in yourself confide, You know the way to live! — Mephistopheles to Faust Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust: A Tragedy, translated by Lewis Filmore, (London: William Smith, 1847), p. 79. First published in the German as Faust: eine Tragödie, […]