The ideal and the played performanceSome conductors put all the emphasis on the melodic line, while others are fanatics about rhythm, but there are very few conductors who are uniquely able to look at the score and hear every part before it actually happens. With the very best of conductors, it’s as though there are two performances going on simultaneously. […]
Stravinsky and Charlie ParkerThere is a story that Igor Stravinsky went to the New York jazz club Birdland one evening in 1951. Whispers went round that the great composer was in the house. When Charlie Parker came on with his quintet, he didn’t acknowledge Stravinsky in person, but seamlessly quoted The Firebird in his first number, the furiously […]
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 […]
The excitement of all possibilities“Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of all possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning.” Gloria Steinem, writer http://www.gloriasteinem.com
Rachmaninoff practising slowlyAbram Chasins visited Rachmaninoff in Hollywood: Arriving at the designated hour of twelve, I heard an occasional piano sound as I approached the cottage. I stood outside the door, unable to believe my ears, Rachmaninoff was practising Chopin’s étude in thirds [G sharp minor, Op. 25, No. 6], but at such a snail’s pace that […]
The length of a rehearsalRachmaninoff completed his Third Piano Concerto at his summer estate at Ivanovka in September-October 1909. He then toured America, learning the piano part on a dumb piano aboard the ship. The work was first performed in New York under Walter Damrosch in November 1909. In January 1910, Gustav Mahler conducted the third New York performance. […]
A monkey on his shoulderCellist Walter Joachim spend some time in Calcutta, India. He recalled: “I bought a monkey with which to amuse myself. We played. He was sitting on my shoulders for hours when I was practising.” Joachim practised at least one or two movements of a Bach suite. “I started my day usually with Bach or a […]
What an artist can do for anotherThe best and only thing that one artist can do for another is to serve as an example and an inspiration. – Steven Pressfield S. Pressfield, The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, New York, Black Irish Entertainment, 2002, p.18
Artificial by natureBurnett James describes how in the 1920s Ravel was preoccupied with decorating "Le Belvédère" [his house] and in laying out the garden with many small exotic plants and miniature Japanese trees. To see that house and garden today is to experience a feeling of direct contact with Ravel. He deliberately made it an accurate reflection […]
Oration XIV (St. Gregory the Theologian)Title: Oration XIV Text: St. Gregory the Theologian Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: SATB and piano Product medium: PDF score Samples:
