Unconscious bursts of creativity that engender significant artistic endeavors are not necessarily inspired by passionate romantic love alone. Greek mythology believed that this kind of stimulus came from nine muses, the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. Muses were long considered the source of knowledge embodied in poetry, lyric songs and ancient myths. Throughout the history of Western art, artists, writers and musicians have prayed to the muses, or alternately, drawn inspiration from personified muses that conceptually reside beyond the borders of earthly love. True to life, however, composer inspiration has emerged from the entire spectrums of existence and being. Nature has always played a decidedly important role in the inspiration of various classical composers, as did exotic cities, landscapes or rituals. Composer inspiration is also found in poetry, the visual arts, and mythological stories and tales. Artistic, historical or cultural expressions of the past are just as inspirational as is the everyday: the third Punic War or the contrapuntal mastery of Bach is inspirationally just as relevant as are the virulent bat and camel. Composer inspiration is delightfully drawn from heroes and villains, scientific advances, a pet, or something as mundane as a hangover. Discover what fires the imagination of people who never stop asking questions.
Igor Stravinsky had a vast appetite for literature. That appetite basically reflected his constant desire for learning, exploring, and for making new discoveries. Forced into exile by World War I, Stravinsky initially found inspiration in Russian folklore. A collection of
Charles Gounod took the first prelude of Bach’s Well-Tempered Klavier and started noodling around on it, and his piano teacher, Pierre Zimmerman, with whom he was studying at the Paris Conservatoire, took note of it. J.S. Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier,
Born 150 years ago in Paris, Marcel Proust was a sickly child and he suffered from poor health for most of his short life. Yet his almost inexhaustible complexity as a novelist, critic and essayist has reverberated through virtually every
During the war years of 1915 and 1916, Delius looked to older poets for a cheering series. His collection of Old English Lyrics took the poetry of William Shakespeare, and his contemporaries, Ben Jonson, Thomas Nashe, and Robert Herrick, as
In his Memoirs, Rimsky-Korsakov was decidedly unkind to his student Anton Arensky. He accused him of having been an alcoholic and gamblers, and that his death by consumption was the final and just result. “By the nature of his talents
Raphael Georg Kiesewetter (1773–1850) studied philosophy at Olmütz and law in Vienna before he was employed in the chancellery of the imperial army. Subsequently, he became a valued official at the war office in Vienna. Kiesewetter was an accomplished musician
Carnival is the jolliest and most colourful time of the year; in a word, it’s non-stop party time. Christians around the world celebrate Easter, and the period of about six weeks that prepares the faithful for Easter Sunday is called
The baritone singer and composer Johann Michael Vogl (1768–1840) was a key figure in Schubert’s success as a Lied composer. Vogl was engaged at the Vienna Court Opera, and he met Schubert for the first time in 1817. Renowned for
