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.
Benjamin Britten (1913-1976) wrote his orchestral showpiece The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra in 1946 as a commission for an educational film on the instruments of the orchestra. Britten used a theme from the Baroque British composer Henry Purcell
Laments continued to be very special works – rarely written and always filled with a very high emotional intensity. Elegies, on the other hand, were more of a late-19th-century phenomenon. Rather than heart-felt cries of despair, they were more like
It’s not really known who wrote the Toy Symphony, and it’s credited to both Joseph Haydn and Leopold Mozart. One problem is that the work didn’t appear in print until 1820, long after the death of either composer. The original
Johann Jakob Brahms was a double bass player in the six-man band that performed daily at the Alster Pavilion, Hamburg’s most fashionable meeting-place. Wealthy families and citizens of Hamburg liked to stroll and drive along the river, stopping for a
During the first decades of the 19th Century, the city of Vienna was a thrilling and highly competitive musical melting pot. Conductors, performers and composers from all parts of Europe had flocked to the city to take advantage of the
Over the last 150 years, the Nordic countries have produced two important composers. Both were born in 1865, however, Denmark’s foremost composer Carl Nielsen was never able to match the popularity of his contemporary Jean Sibelius. Sibelius hailed from an
In classical poetry, an Elegy is a mournful, melancholic, or plaintive poem, sometimes written as a lament for the dead and other times covering sad topics such as war. Elegies to lost love are also part of the genre. Ovid
The musical genre called “Skiffle” originated in African-American culture in the early 20th century. Drawing its influences from jazz, blues, and folk, it usually featured poor musicians using homemade or improvised instruments. Washboards, jugs, cigar-box fiddles and comb-and-paper kazoos accompanied
