The effect of Tchaikovsky’s music on his patronessNadyezhda Filaretovna von Meck was Tchaikovsky’s patroness. In March 1877 she wrote of the effect of Tchaikovsky’s music on her. The work being described is a Marche Funèbre on a theme from Oprichnik (this work is now lost). It is so superb that, as I had hoped, it elevates and transports me into a […]
Steering the audience’s tasteThe following advice appeared in the British Journal the Musical Times in January 1879: A young student wishes us to tell him what to do under the following circumstances: He has been carefully educated in music, for which he has considerable aptitude and an intense love; he is an efficient pianist, and knows most of […]
NAXOS and the recording industry“There was a time, not so long ago, that Klaus Heymann was accused of trying to destroy the classical music industry. That was around the same time that the world realized that Naxos, Heymann’s budget-record label, was not just another series of CDs in the bargain bin. At first, nobody really knew what to make […]
LullabyTitle: Lullaby Composer: Greg Smith Instrumentation: Piano Product medium: PDF score Related products: – Lullaby (mp3) SAMPLE:
Harmann on orchestration“To orchestrate is like a thumbprint. I can’t understand having someone else do it. It would be like someone putting color to your paintings.” – Bernard Hermann on orchestration. Hall, Roger L., A Guide to Film Music, p. 43. Cited at Wikipedia.
Accomplishing great things“To accomplish great things we must first dream, then visualize, then plan… believe… act!” – Alfred Montapert, Author Cited at: QuotationsBook
They who dream“They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.” — Edgar Allan Poe
Debussy on Metronome markingsYou know what I think about metronome marks: they’re right for a single bar, like “roses, with a morning life”. Only there are “those” who don’t hear music and who take these marks as authority to hear it still less! But do what you please. — Debussy, Letter to Jacques Durand of 9 October 1915 […]
A hunchLogically, a hunch makes as much sense as saying, horses have tails; therefore, all tails have horses.” But in the zany world of films you don’t explain hunches — you just live and die by them. Frank Capra (1971) The Name Above the Title: An Autobiography. Macmillan, p. 123.
Beethoven’s compositional processBeethoven was revising Fidelio when he wrote to Georg Freiedrich Treitschke (who was helping to revise the libretto) (1): Now, of course, everything has to be done at once; and I could composer something new far more quickly than patch up the old with something new, as I am now doing. For my custom when I […]
