Favio Chávez, a technician at a Paraguayan landfill site, formed the the Cateura Orchestra of Recycled Instruments: an orchestra comprising of the children of landfill works. The orchestra was designed to encourage musical education in an low socio-economic area. A violin would hold more value than a landfill worker’s house. However, by creating instruments out […]

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 […]

“In higher art, only that is worth being presented which has never before been presented.  There is no great work of art which does not convey a new message to humanity; there is no great artist who fails in this respect.  This is the code of honor of all the great art, and consequently in […]

“Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.” Matthew Arnold (poet and scholar), Preface to Literature and Dogma (1873 edition), https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Literature_and_Dogma/Introduction, accesssed 29 August 2021.

“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” -Pablo Picasso Cited at WikiQuote

Now I am attracted only to music which I consider to be better than it can be performed. Therefore I feel (rightly or wrongly) that unless a piece of music presents a problem to me, a neverending problem, it doesn’t interest me too much. For instance, Chopin’s studies are lovely pieces, perfect pieces, but I […]

“The silence that accepts merit as the most natural thing in the world, is the highest applause.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson “An address delivered before the senior class in Divinity College, Cambridge, Sunday Evening, July 15, 1838”, The Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, in 12 vols. Fireside Edition (Boston and New York, 1909). Vol. 1 […]

“Music is for me like a beautiful mosaic which God has put together. He takes all the pieces in his hand, throws them into the world, and we have to recreate the picture from the pieces.” Jean Sibelius, quoted by Jalmari Finne to Anna Sarlin, 28th June 1905. Cited at: www.sibelius.fi [accessed 31 Mar 2010].

Despite my respect for Saint-Saëns’ age, what he says about Chopin’s pedalling isn’t entirely true. I have very clear memories of what Mme Mauté de Fleurville told me. He (Chopin) recommended practising without pedal and, in performance, not holding it on except in very rare instances. It was the same way of turning the pedal […]

Title: Lullaby for Berkeley Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano duet Level: Piano I – Level 1 (5 finger hand position, left and right hands) Product medium: PDF score & MP3 accompaniment track SAMPLES: (Audio sample of accompaniment track only)