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.
The Renaissance – the sixteenth century time of rebirth was also a time for musical games. One of the greatest games of the day was sex. Musical references to sex were everywhere and especially in the madrigal. The madrigal was
Ferruccio Busoni was the only child of two professional musicians. His Italian father was an accomplished clarinetist and his German mother a capable pianist. Towards the end of his life Busoni declared, “I bless my father for having directed me
Othello has long been a seductive Shakespeare tragedy, adaptable to our present day life with its enduring leitmotifs—love, mistrust, duplicity, racism, retaliation and remorse.
The not-so-young composer was working on the next piece after the work that made him a national star. The singer was an up-and-coming contralto. At the 1899 Norwich Festival, Edward Elgar unveiled his new song cycle, Sea Pictures, with the
At the 2016 Grammy® Awards, the winner for Choral Performance was for a work that was written a mere century ago. Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil, written in January and February 1915, received its premiere on 10 March 1915. When you consider
It’s one of those things – you come up with a great project, you get a lot of people involved, they give you brilliant stuff and then one person comes along and trumps everything. And so it was with Anton
Gustav Mahler, the grandest symphonist of his age, was born in July 1860 in the village of Kaliště, in the present-day Czech Republic. His background was not particularly artistic. His father Bernhard had grown up labeling bottles in his family’s
The Concerto for Violin, Cello and Piano in C Major, Op. 56 by Ludwig van Beethoven, more commonly known as the “Triple Concerto,” has not fared well with critics, scholars and audiences alike. Music critic Marion Scott suggested that the
