The art of listening

“It’s a challenge, for me at least, to do nothing but listen.  You need to set aside time for it.  You need to concentrate on the music alone (and not on your next deadline).  But when it works, you open yourself up to the transcendent ecstasy good music can bring.”

Francis Merson, editor, Limelight, April 2011.

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A mushroom anyone?
…everybody was possessed by the Russian passion for gathering mushrooms.  Rivalries ran high, mushrooms were counted and compared, their beauty was discussed.  Rachmaninoff was an early riser and often went alone for a walk in the woods.  He used to return contented and start teasing (he was a great teaser).  One day he badgered us […]
Vaughan Williams on sense of musical citizenship
Vaughan Williams wrote a series of articles for the Royal College of Music magazine entitled “Who Wants the English Composer?”. In these, he expresses his advocacy for an exploration of the English musical style: We English composers are always saying, “Here are Wagner, Brahms, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, what fine fellows they are, let us try and […]
Comfort in the score of Saul
In 1862 Brahms left Hamburg for Vienna. Brahms was not at all sure that he would remain long in Vienna; but he must have had some premonition that his Hamburg life was nearly over.  He found it hard to say goodbye to his old father and mother; though this time he could leave secure in […]
Knowledge represents inner strength
“Knowledge is not a passion from without the mind, but an active exertion of the inward strength, vigor and power of the mind, displaying itself from within.” – Ralph Cudworth, Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality (1731)
Waste no note
“Never write an unnecessary note. Every note must live.” Jean Sibelius, in a radio interview with Kalevi Kilpi, 1948) Cited at: www.sibelius.fi [accessed 31 Mar 2010]. 
Heard but not seen
In 1926, conductor Leopold Stokowski inserted the following into the Philadelphia Orchestra programs: The great conviction has been growing in me that the orchestra and conductor should be unseen, so that on the part of the listener more attention will go to the ear and less to the eyes. The experiment of an invisible orchestra […]
Bach’s preferred instrument
Johann Sebastian Bach’s preferred to play the viola when conducting an orchestra. Source: Siblin, Eric (2009) The Cello Suites.  Crows Nest: Allen and Unwin, p. 216.
Achieving your aims
“Those who have achieved all their aims probably set them too low.” – Herbert von Karajan, conductor Herbert von Karajan – Official Homepage. http://karajan.org/jart/prj3/karajan/main.jart?rel=en. Accessed 20 March 2016.
Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies
Columbine’s Veil
Title: Columbine’s Veil Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score Background: Pierrot, separated from his love Columbine, is weeping in his room. Overcome with sorrow, he falls asleep in the corner. Some friends of Pierrot come to visit. When they eventually find him, they fetch a nearby pianist and suggest waking Pierrot with […]