Haydn reached London in the opening days of 1791. He passed his first night at the house of Bland, the music publisher, at 45 High Holborn, which now, rebuilt, forms part of the First Avenue Hotel. Bland, it should have been mentioned before, had been sent over to Vienna by Salomon to coax Haydn into […]

Early phonograph recordings were a little rough.  In 1889, pianist Hans von Bülow was asked to play into a phonograph in America: After playing upon a pianoforte, from which issued sounds compared to the soft and dreamy gurgle of a brook, the far-off sighign of the night wind and the roar of the cataract, he […]

Murray Perahia initially found Beethoven hard to understand: “I was always working on Beethoven, but I couldn’t feel close to him.  For nearly ten years I didn’t altogether like his music because I felt it showed an aggressive, up-front personality.”  But after studying, performing, and recording Beethoven (Appasionata,op. 2, op. 101 and the Piano Concertos), […]

A performance of Schönberg’s Pierrot Lunaire was given by Artur Schnabel (piano), Boris Kroyt (violin), Gregor Piatigorsky (cello), Paul Bose (flute), Marie Gutheil-Schoder (speaker), conducted by Fritz Stiedry. Gregor Piatigorsky was amused at the need for a conductor, given the size of the ensemble: The half-spoken, half-sung voice indicated in the score was partly filled […]

Title: Impromptu (Op. 97, no.5) Composer: Jean Sibelius (arr. Greg Smith) Instrumentation: Trombone and piano Product medium: PDF score and part

Between 1911 and 1914, Nicolas Medtner stayed at Khlebnikovo, a house on the Osipov estate in the village of Trakhaneyevo. There were visits by the family, brothers Karl and Alexander and sister Sofiya, with their children. Karl’s daughter Vera brought her dachshund with her and would join her uncle Kolya [Nicolas] and Flix [Nicolas’ fox […]

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)

What happens is a continual surrender of himself as he is at the moment to something which is more valuable. The progress of an artist is a continual self-sacrifice, a continual extinction of personality. – T. S. Elliot, Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919)

There is a crack, a crack in everythingThat’s how the light gets in. Leonard Cohen, “Anthem Related: “There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in”: The story of Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem”

Many studies are now discovering that learning a musical instrument is something positive in itself – a discipline that helps a person to acquire skills of co-ordination. concentration, and perseverance. It shares these with sport, of course, but there is more. What makes playing a musical instrument worthy of special attention is that its physical […]