“Good music is very close to primitive language.” Denis Diderot (Elements of Physiology, 1875)

“You cannot set art off in a corner and hope for it to have vitality, reality, and substance.” – Charles Ives, American composer

In a radio interview in 1937, Edward Elgar’s violinist friend William H. Reed described Elgar’s “distractions” while composing the violin concerto: I can never play the last movement without seeing the River Wye flowing past the meadow at Hereford where Sir Edward and I used to practise throwing a boomerang in our “off-time” between working […]

Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-sharp minor proved very popular with the public. At times, it was programmed “by request” (1), and if not was freqently expected as an encore. In 1922, Rachmaninoff performed in the Queens Hall (London). A critic in the Musical Times described the event: It was clear that the bulk of those who filled Queen’s Hall […]

I believe that there is no one the world so insensitive, so leaden, that he is not moved by song. Theophrastus rightly said in the second book concerning music that the essence of music is the movement of the soul, driving away the evils and troubles that have invaded it. If music did not have […]

Leopold Stokowski was a champion of contemporary music. He conducted music without judgement, believing judgement to be the public’s job. During the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra’s 1915-16 season,he programmed orchestral suites from Stravinsky’s Firebird and Petrushka, Richard Strauss’ Alpine Symphony, Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy, and Schoenberg’s Kammersymphonie No. 1. “This last, very cerebral work, although not […]

Composer: Alexandre Michel Gerard DesplatArranger: Greg SmithTitle: “Love Letter” from The Boys in the BoatInstrumentation: Piano solo Available from Sheet Music Direct and Sheet Music Plus

This will be our response to violence To make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.  – Leonard Bernstein.

In the matter of practice, I never urge a student to work so many hours a day. One may be enough. The musician is like a painter, who frequently spends his time in looking at the work he has done, and in thinking what he will make of it, without so much as touching the […]

Title: Sleepy BearComposer: Greg SmithInstrumentation: PianoPerformer: Greg Smith (22 March 2009) Your browser does not support the audio element. Sheet music