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.

Posted

in

by

Greg

Tags:

, ,

Featured Content

It must be resolved
Bach, a master of harmony and counterpoint, would not settle for imperfect sounds, no matter where he was.  Johann Reichardt recalled: Johann Sebastian Bach once came into a large company while a musical amateur was sitting and improvising at a harpsichord.  The moment the latter became aware of the presence of the great master, he […]
Discovery
“Discovery is seeing what everybody else has seen, and thinking what nobody else has thought.” Albert Szent-Györgyi , American bio-chemist.
Imagination
“Imagination decides everything: it creates beauty, justice and happiness, which is the world’s supreme good.” – Pascal Blaise, French mathematician, physicist, and philosopher. C. Prendergast, A history of modern French literature: from the sixteenth century to the twentieth century, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2017, p. 237.
Some curious devices
In the late nineteenth-century, some quite curious mechanical inventions were created to deal with the body with relation to pianists and conductors.    The following is an account of a presentation by T. L. Southgate on The Physiology of Pianoforte Piano. The paper presented was written by W. Macdonald Smith.  This account appeared in the […]
Intermezzo, op. 118 no. 2 (Brahms)
>
Art and the strength of the former times
In 1824, Schubert wrote a letter to his friend Schober concerning a general complacency about the role of art at the time: The idle time, which hinders the fulfillment of all greatness, destroys me too. Even golden verse is foolishly mocked by the people, no longer attentive to its powerful message. Only by the gift […]
Fill Us With Your Love, O Lord – Psalm 89 (90)
Title: Fill us with your love, O Lord Text: Psalm 89 (90): 12-17. R. v.14 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score and part SAMPLE: .
Crosswords
Grade 3 Theory
Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies
Title: Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies (silent film score) Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score     Related products:     – Super-Hooper-Dyne Lizzies (mp3 recording) Details: Film released in 1925 Directed by: Del Lord Written by: Felix Alder, Frank Capra, Al Geibler & Jefferson Moffitt. Starring: Billy Bevan, Andy Clyde, Lillian Knight, John J. Richardson. Synopsis: […]
Golden rules for an orchestra
‘”There are two golden rules for an orchestra: start together and finish together. The public doesn’t give a damn what goes on in between.” – Thomas Beecham, conductor.  Cited at: Quotationsbook