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.
Maurice Ravel’s piano piece, Gaspard de la Nuit (1908), hides in its deceptively childlike title a radical piano work of great imagination. The pianist Alfred Cortot called it “one of the most astonishing examples of instrumental ingenuity ever contrived.
William Grant Still (1895-1978) is called ‘the dean of African-American composers’ and throughout his life, worked in all genres of music, from jazz, where he was an arranger for both W.C. Handy and Artie Shaw, to Broadway, where he played
Beginning in the late 18th century, something magical happened in Paris on Friday! As a contemporary observer wrote, “Friday is the day that was adopted by most artists as the day to entertain; on this day, everyone visits their painter.
In France, the reaction against the excesses of Wagnerism in the late 19th century turned music toward the lighter side. Les Six collaborated with Jean Cocteau to create collaborative pieces such as Les mariés de la tour Eiffel (The Wedding
After we’ve gotten Faust sorted with his devil problems, all sorts of other operas have them as well. In Dvořák’s opera Čert a Káča (Kate and the Devil), we open at a village dance. Jirka has to return to work
If it’s not the jealous lover in opera, it’s the devil causing havoc. In many operas, the devil has a leading role and it’s usually up to our heroine (sometimes the hero) to making things right again.
Together with Igor Stravinsky and Sergei Prokofiev, Dimitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) unquestionably represents the pinnacle of 20th-century Russian music. Contrary to his famous compatriots who sought employment in the West, Shostakovich was educated entirely under the Soviet system. Even at times
She was the great-niece of the influential violin virtuoso Joseph Joachim and had a decidedly psychic disposition! Her exotic and colorful name was Jelly d’Aranyi, and during a séance in 1933, Robert Schumann told her to premiere his “long-lost” violin
