The AdventurerTitle: The Adventurer (Silent film soundtrack) Composer: Greg Smith Performer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: MP3 download Related products: – The Adventurer PDF score BACKGROUND: FILM: Written by: Vincent Bryan, Charlie Chaplin & Maverick Terrell Starring: Charlie Chaplin, Edna Purviance, Eric Campbell Director: Charlie Chaplin Year of release: 1917 TRACK LISTING AND SAMPLES: Track […]
An unknown piece by BrahmsAn undiscovered piano piece by Brahms (entitled Albumblatt, meaning “sheet music from an album”) has been discovered by Christopher Hogwood at Princeton University. The tune reappears in second movement of Brahms’ Horn Trio, written 12 years later. Alex Needham, “Brahms piano piece to get its premiere 159 years after its creation”, The Guardian, 13 January […]
Stokowski and his audienceThe conductor Leopold Stokowski had a love hate relationship with his audience: He wooed them and cajoled them, flattered them and then gently reproved them. When they grew fidgety, he shamed them into attentiveness and concentration. “Please don’t do that,” he once admonished an audience of program shufflers. “We work hard all week to give […]
Schoenberg’s composition classAn account of Arnold Schoenberg teaching a composition class: Well, first of all there was composition class, in which he analyzed in brief the first sections of several Schubert sonatas. How he adores Schubert! “Many people say,” he remarked, “that Schubert is too long. He is long-yes-but for me he is always too short!” Such […]
Lullaby for BerkeleyTitle: 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)
First impressions of Schindler’s ListWhen renowned composer John Williams first watched a rough cut of Schindler’s List at director Steven Spielberg’s home in Los Angeles, he got so choked up he couldn’t speak. “I had to walk around the room for four or five minutes to catch my breath,” Williams recalls. “I said to Steven, ‘I really think you […]
Work so that you don’t have to workHerr Richter, the pianist, is going on a tour that will take him back to Holland, his native country – I have given him a letter introductionto the Countess Thun at Linz. – He also wishes to visit Salzbourg, so I gave him a 4-line note for you, my dearest father … He plays well […]
The piano as furnitureIn the ninteenth century, the piano was not only regarded as a musical instrument but as a part of the decor a room. An article in The Musical Times in February 1893 describes some possible applications: Placed near a bay window, it shuts in the cosiest lovers’ next imaginable. Soft-cushioned window seats that have room […]
Beethoven distractedA student of Beethoven’s, Ferdinand Ries, went on a walk with his teacher in the country: Beethoven muttered and howled the whole time, without emitting any definite notes. When I asked him what he was doing he answered, “A theme for the last allegro of the sonata [the Appassionata] has occurred to me.” When we […]
Tchaikovsky on Don GiovanniTchaikovsky, later in his life, reflected on hearing Mozart's Don Giovanni as a boy: The music of Don Giovanni was the first to conquer me completely. It awoke an ecstasy in me of which the consequences are known. It gave me the key to the spheres of pure beauty in which the greatest geniuses soar. […]