Vaughan Williams had asked Holst about his experience of having an agent. Holst, who was at Harvard University at the time, replied: I’m very glad I’ve made use of Duncan McKenzie (OUP) as an agent. He has been really helpful and I hope you’ll at least consider using him. The alternative would be to print […]

Ignaz Xaver Seyfried was asked to turn pages for Beethoven in a performance of Beethoven’s Third Piano Concerto (5 April 1803). He recalled: In the playing of the concerto movements he asked me to turn the pages for him; but – heaven help me! – that was easier said than done. I saw almost nothing […]

“I need to start from the assumption that the world of spirit is ordered, structured by its very nature, that everything  which causes disharmony in the world, all that is monstrous, inexplicable, and dreadful … And the formula for world harmony is most likely linked not to the blurring of evil but to the fact […]

“When you put creativity into everything, everything becomes available to you.” – Robert Rodriguez, filmmaker Cited in: Nathalie Sejean, “30 Piece of Advice from Robert Rodriguez to Lead a Creative Life”, Mentorless, 4 September 2015, https://www.mentorless.com/2015/09/04/30-piece-of-advice-from-robert-rodriguez-to-lead-a-creative-life/, accessed 28 October 2020

The conductor Stokowski was co-conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.  He was rehearsing his own orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.  The orchestra, however, was used to playing Ravel’s exuberant orchestration. Charles O’Connell recalled: “In the midst of the rehearsal, one of the second violinists busied himself practising the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, which […]

Greatness means the construction of an inner world, and the communication of this inner world to the physical world of humanity.  The two belong together; neither is thinkable without the other.  The strongest feeling and the most vivid imagination are worthless to humanity if they do not manifest themselves; the greatest constructive talent is worthless […]

Vaughan Williams gave a broadcast talk on Bach entitled “Bach the Great Bourgeois.” It was later published in The Listener. Vaughan Williams, who was involved in performances of works such as Bach’s St. Matthew’s Passion as part of the Leith Hill Festival, offered some insight in contemporary approaches to Bach performance: WHEN I was a […]

It is not what the artist does that counts. But what he is. Cézanne would never have interested me if he had lived and thought like Jaques-Emile Blanche, even if the apple he had painted had been ten times more beautiful. What interests us is the anxiety of Cézanne, the teaching of Cézanne, the anguish […]

Title 1: My Shepherd is the Living Lord Text 1: Isaac Watt Title 2: I know That My Redeemer Lives Text 2: Samuel Medley Tune title: My Shepherd 88.88 Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB Product medium: PDF score Sample:

“That’s what I find wonderful about music: there is always a secret left, pieces don’t belong to performers, you rent them!” – Joseph Moog, Pianist W. Boon, “Joseph Moog”, Pianistique, 5 November 2016, https://www.pianistique.com/home/english-interviews/15-interviews/75-joseph-moog, accessed 17 January 2022.