Vaughan Williams gave a broadcast talk on Bach entitled “Bach the Great Bourgeois.” It was later published in The Listener. Vaughan Williams, who was involved in performances of works such as Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion as part of the Leith Hill Festival, offered some insight in contemporary approaches to Bach performance: WHEN I was a […]

“Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.  Although the spirit be not master of that which it creates through music, yet it is blessed in this creation, which, like every creation of art, is mightier than the artist. — Beethoven Edwards, Tyron (1891) A Dictionary of Thoughts.  New York: Cassell Publishing […]

“You know I’m a useless kind of man apart from my music.” – Tchaikovsky Cited in: Hanson, Lawrence and Elisabeth (1965) Tchaikovsky: A New Study of the Man and His Music.  London: Cassell & Company, p.179.

“I firmly believe, nor am I ashamed to assert, that next to theology no art is equal to music; for it is the only one, except theology, which is able to give a quiet and happy mind. This is manifestly proved by the fact that the devil, the author of depressing care and distressing disturbances, […]

We arrived here safely yesterday morning at 9 o’clock. – We spent the first night at Vögelbruck; – on the following morning we reached Lambbach – just in time for me to accompany the Agnus Dei on the organ during the mass. – The prelate was most delighted to see me again … We stayed […]

The practice of wearing white gloves whilst conducting was common in the nineteenth century. The Musical times reported in July 1884 that: “A German conductor,” we are told, “in order that the public may be more deeply impressed with the feeling of grief intended to be produced by the Funeral March in Beethoven’s ‘Eroica Symphony,’ wears […]

If a man teaches composition in a university, how can he not be a composer? He has worked hard, learned his craft. Ergo, he is a composer. A professional. Like a doctor. But there is that doctor who opens you up, does exactly the right thing, closes you up—and you die. He failed to take […]

Title: Deereeree the Wagtail, and the Rainbow Text: Aboriginal dreamtime legend. Based on the account by Catherine Langloh Parker. Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Voice, Flute, 2 Clarinets in Bb, Cello and Piano Product medium: PDF score and part Sample:

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 […]