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.
Written about children, but not written for children, the collection of short piano pieces entitled Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood) by Robert Schumann was a gift to Clara Wieck in 1838, two years before they were finally married. The final 13
Christiane Eberhardine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, Electress of Saxony and titular Queen of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, was a bit of a religious celebrity. For years she resisted the pressure of the court to embrace the Roman Catholic faith, which her husband had
Beginning with a hushed sound, Nights in the Gardens of Spain by Manuel de Falla (1876 – 1946), immediately takes us into a hot, quiet garden in an exotic location. Originally designed as a set of nocturnes for solo piano,
Ethel Smyth’s String Quartet in E minor has received considerable scholarly attention. Elizabeth Wood investigates the work as a representative of the struggle for women’s rights and Smyth’s involvement with the women’s suffrage movement. On the other hand, Jennifer Gwynn
Alexander Tikhonovich Grechaninov (1864-1956) wasn’t entirely happy to study at the Moscow Conservatory. Although he took composition lessons from Sergey Taneyev and sat in the counterpoint class with Arensky, his initial attempts at composition were judged to be a waste
In his famous Tintern Abbey poem, the English Romantic poet William Wordsworth wrote of his sister Dorothy, Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend, My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch The language of my former
Over the centuries, the Italian peninsula has given rise to an extraordinary number of artistic and intellectual movements. Ranging from literature and painting to the visual arts, Italy has magnificently contributed to European intellectual and cultural development. And then there
Not so long ago, it came to light that a high-profile administrator working in Hong Kong higher education had received his advanced degree not only from a Philippine Sari-Sari store masquerading as a University, but that he simply copied his
