The need for books

We wouldn’t need books quite so much if everyone around us understood us well. But they don’t. Even those who love us get us wrong. They tell us who we are but miss things out. They claim to know what we need, but forget to ask us properly first. They can’t understand what we feel — and sometimes, we’re unable to tell them, because we don’t really understand it ourselves. That’s where books come in. They explain us to ourselves and to others, and make us feel less strange, less isolated and less alone.

— Alain de Botton

M. Popova, A Velocity of Being: Lettees to a Young Reader, New York, Enchanted Lion Books, p. 24.

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Beethoven on music
“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 […]
Sibelius’ punch recipe
“Punch recipe (for Satu’s christening party) 1 l water + sugar + jam + brandy or spirit. Add 2 bottles of wine when everything is completely cold. Add a few drops of Bergamot oil in a lump of sugar, which must be melted in the water. (N.B. All mineral waters make the punch black.” Jean […]
Claude Debussy: Rêverie
Fromont published Rêverie years after Debussy had given it to them. By this time, Debussy’s opinion of it had changed: “I regret very much your decision to publish Rêverie… I wrote it in a hurry years ago, purely for material considerations. It is a work of no consequence and I frankly consider it no good.” […]
Water music
A common theme in the music of French composers at pre world war I was water.  Debussy wrote En bateau (On the Boat), Sirenes (Sirens), Reflets dans l’eau (Reflections in the Water), Voiles (Sails), and La Cathedrale engloutie (The Engulfed Cathedral).  Ravel wrote Jeux d’Eau (The Water Fountain), and Ondine. So striking a peculiarity of […]
Orchestra/Concert band
Concert band
Brahms’ harmonic exercise
It was during the summer of 1858 that Brahms met Agathe von Seibold.  He had gone to visit Ise Grimm at Göttingenm the university town where Joachim spent his holidays.  Ise had recently married, and his home was a meeting place for the younger musicians. I have invited some people in this evening,” he told […]
Difficult music is the easiest to play
Scriabin’s fiery D#-minor Etude, with its relentless triplets and huge leaps, used to just fall under my fingers, while the Lento final movement of the Copland Sonata was a minefield of wrong notes. Why is that? Is it just because we practice hard music 20 times as much as easy music, or is it psychological, […]
Start from scratch every time
Benjamin Appl on working with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau: When people ask me about what I learned from Fischer-Dieskau, that’s what I always come back to: of course I could say a hundred things about technique and his reputation, but what I found most inspiring was how he created everything afresh. Whenever he was teaching he’d prepare […]
Music as a metaphor … or not
“Most music is metaphor, but Wolff is not. I am not metaphor either. Parable, maybe. Cage is sermon.” – Morton Feldman, American composer Cited in Tom Johnson, Remembrance, September 1987. Accessed 11 May 2013.
Joe Hisaishi on the score of The Boy and the Heron
“I did not want to describe emotions or scenes through music. I wanted to be at a certain distance from the story and the characters, and I wanted to be in between the actual story and what we see on the screen, and the viewers, in terms of writing the music.” — Joe Hisaishi T. […]