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.
English composer Benjamin Britten (1913 – 1976) took an 1810 book of poetry written by the Aldeburgh poet George Crabbe and used it as the basis for his opera Peter Grimes. The poetry itself was presented in the form of
Friedrich Rückert was professor of Oriental languages at the University of Erlangen and Berlin. A master of more than thirty languages, he principally made his name with a number of highly esteemed translations of Oriental poetry. However, he also started
Composers working at the turn of the 20th-century are frequently categorized as nationalists. And Spain produced three prominent composers that seemingly fit this narrow description. Isaac Albéniz composed vibrant piano works of Lisztian difficulty and Iberian color, while Manuel de
Right in the middle of writing his opera Lulu, Alban Berg (1885-1935) was also procrastinating on a commission from violinist Louis Krasner. Krasner was born in the Ukraine but moved to America at age 5 and graduated from the New
Requiring a large orchestra and with 10 movements, the first symphony written by Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) was a monumental achievement. Commissioned by Sergey Koussevitzky for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, it took Messiaen 2 years to write it, completing it in
Beginning with a crash and a boom, Aaron Copland (1900-1990) beings his Fanfare for the Common Man. The work was inspired by a number of sources, both political and musical. On the political side, reference is made to a 1942
Born in Shanghai in 1951, Chen Qigang is a leading Chinese composer who divides his working life between Beijing and Paris. He was, as you might well remember, appointed director of music for the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony in 2008.
In 1926, the composer György Kurtág was born in the town of Lugoj, a Hungarian/German settlement that was ceded to Romania by the treaty of Versailles in 1919. Growing up at a cultural and linguistic crossroads, it’s hardly surprising that