The inexpressible depth of all music, by virtue of which it floats past us as a paradise quite familiar and yet eternally remote, and is so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from its pain.
Arthur Schopenhauer, philosopher
A. Schopenhaurer, The World as Will and Representation, Translated by E. F. J. Payne, Vol. 1, United States, Dover Publications, 1969, p. 264.
The inexpressible depth of music
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The Battle of the Somme
Title: The Battle of the Somme Composer: Greg Smith Performer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: MP3 download (25 tracks; 73:00) Related products: – Full score (PDF download). 80 pages. Background: In 1916 France was struggling to fend off German occupation. It had become apparent that to break the stalemate Britain may need to increase […]
Just as we checked the tuning …In 1853, Brahms went on a tour of German cities with the Hungarian violinist Eduard Reményi. In the town of Celle, they were scheduled to play Beethoven’s Sonata in c minor (op. 30, no. 2): but it was found that the piano in the hall was tuned a half tone too low. Reményi refused to […]
The purpose of the theater“Do you know why I abandoned all my personal affairs and took up the theater? Because the theater is the most powerful pulpit, more powerful in its influence than books or the press. This pulpit fell into the hands of the rabble of humanity, and they turned it into a place of depravity. … My […]
A result of education“The highest result of education is tolerance.” – Helen Keller, Optimism (1903)
Music education helps to encourage empathy“In an age when many children experience music alone on iPods and computers, especially students at the upper elementary level, the research underscores the value of face-to-face musical interactions. “The Rabinowitch work [at Cambridge University] helps reinforce the intuitive notion that engagement in music is beneficial in terms of ethos, pathos, and logos,” said Jonathan […]
The tragedy of music“The tragedy of music is that it begins with perfection.” – Morton Feldman, American composer. Cited in a May 1976 interview, Studio International, November 1976, pp. 244-248.
Hogarth on Chopin“He accomplishes enormous difficulties, but so quietly, so smoothly and with such constant delicacy and refinement that the listener is not sensible of their real magnitude. It is the exquisite delicacy, with the liquid mellowness of his tone, and the pearly roundness of his passages of rapid articulation which are the peculiar features of his […]
Let My Tongue Be Silenced – Psalm 136 (137)Title: Let my tongue be silenced Text: Psalm 136 (137) Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano (unison verses) Product medium: PDF score and part Sample:
Debussy on impressionismWhat I am trying to do is something ‘different’ – an effect of reality, but what some fools call Impressionism, a term that is utterly misapplied, especially by critics who do not hesitate to apply it to Turner, the greatest creator of mysterious effect in the world of art. — Claude Debussy B. James, Ravel: […]
Gershwin: the life at the partyGershwin was often the life of a party, entertaining on the piano. He said: “The trouble is, when I don’t play at a party I don’t have a good time.” Cited in: Greenberg, Rodney (2008) George Gershwin. New York: Phaidon Press, p.47.