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 Fantasy on popular opera themes was one of the most admired genres of piano music in the first half of the nineteenth century. They were written and performed by virtuoso pianist-composers, and the genre enjoyed much popularity among concert-goers.
Considered “one of the finest studies of the psychopathology of guilt written in any language, Fydor Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment was first published in twelve monthly installments in 1866. The author had just returned from a 10-year exile in
To coincide with the tercentenary of the publication of Vivaldi’s evergreen, ever-popular ‘The Four Seasons’, the Royal School of Church Music (RSCM), a UK independent charity which enables the flourishing of church music, has commissioned a brand new, large-scale choral
Two composers we rarely think of together are the very Russian Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840–1893) and the very Viennese Mozart (1756–1791). Born fifty years apart, they couldn’t be more different in their style and sensibilities. Mozart had been trained in
One of the most famous books of Japanese literature is The Tale of Genji, written by Murasaki Shikibu in the 11th century. It is the story of Hiragu Genji, son of Emperor Kirisubo, and his life after his demotion from
Filip Runesson’s Hur länge ska hon vara död? (after W.A. Mozart’s Requiem in D Minor, K. 626) Mozart and Death, but not the way you think about it. Swedish musician Filip Runesson took Mozart’s Requiem and rearranged it in klezmer
In 1888, the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky encapsulated the tragic history of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, familiar through Shakespeare’s play of the same name, into a fantasy overture. Tchaikovsky had written these kinds of works before, his most famous
The Italian composer Elisabetta Brusa (b. 1954) started composition as a child before attending the Milan Conservatory, where she studied composition. She graduated in 1980 and returned to Milan in 1985 to teach at the Conservatory. Fellowships (Fromm and Fulbright)
