The potential of an artist

“How important is it to catch up with yourself? There are enormous forces lurking in each person, but many people die without having discovered this. Of course it was clear at first glance that Mozart was a genius. But we don’t know whether anybody suspected the great gifts of the young Wagner. Nobody could guarantee a future for the young Tchaikovsky; and it was Rimsky-Korsakov who suspected Stravinsky of having a very poor ear. Apparently, talent matures according to its own laws, which no-one knows. That’s why the emergence of talent is always striking…”

– Alfred Schnittke

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Stokowski playing Bach on the organ
Stewart Warkov, assistant manager of the Symphony of The Air in 1961 described Stokowski playing Bach on the organ: Stokowski played Bach on the organ for me, each time one of the great pieces he had arranged. The sound, the phrasing, and the registration, the ritards and the accelerandos, gave me the impression of hearing […]
Piano Method
Sight singing with Handel
When Handel travelled through Chester, on his way to Ireland, this year, 1741 (to give the first performance of Messiah), I was at the Public School in that city and very well remember seeing him [Handel] smoke a pipe, over a dish of coffee, at the Exchange Coffee House; for being extremely curious to see […]
The development of concert life in London
The public concert, as an institution, dates from England from the Restoration period [from the 1660s]; previously music, unless ecclesiastical or dramatic in character, had been essentially the art of a small circle.  The largess of aristocratic patronage and the profits of publication were the composers’ rewards.  But with the middle of the seventeenth century […]
Stokowski’s rehearsal
Raoul Berger (who eventually had a fall out with the conductor Stokowski and left The Philahrmonic Orchestra) described Stokowski’s rehearsal process: In rehearsal Stoki was given to the methods of a marine drill-sergeant, brutal and insulting.  In those days he was accustomed to make sweeping changes every season, so that those who were dependent on […]
Give music to those who love it
“Music must be given to those who love it. I want to give free concerts; that’s the answer.” -Sviatoslav Richter, pianist Bruno Monsaingeon: Introduction to Sviatoslav Richter — Notebooks and Conversations p. XX. Cited at: Wikipedia
Franz Joseph Haydn: Piano Trio (Hob. XV, No. 25) “Gypsy Trio”
I. Andante II. Poco Adagio III Rondo all’Ongarese Chamber music in the eighteenth century was written for and performed for the aristocracy. Music was an aesthetic pleasure: thus an emphasis was placed on musical balance and clarity in the context of an expressive style: evident particularly in the first two movements of this trio, which […]
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Active listening
Listening to music should always be an active process, and those who attend – pregnant verb – concerts, who listen, who respond, who treasure what they hear there, are musicians. They are the ones who do not let music wash over them like a bubble bath but who actively swim in the water. When vibrations […]
A democratic orchestra
In 1920s Soviet Russia, musicians experimented mirroring the political state: “Just as the government didn’t need a tsar, so the orchestra didn’t need a director,” says Pyotr Aidu of the School of Dramatic Art, which will revive the long-dead form at a premiere concert Thursday. Miriam Elder, “1920s Orchestra Without a Conductor Revived”, The Moscow […]