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.
It’s a real treat, in these days of so much being available at the drop of an internet query, to find a recording of music that truly is rare. We heard the other day a recording of Johan Wenzel Kalliwoda’s
Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-1787) was a prodigious musical talent. By age 13—entirely self-thought—he was a proficient vocalist and expert performer on the violin, cello, harpsichord, and the organ. Regrettably, his father, a successful and prosperous forester did not share his
Richard Strauss: Elektra In Greek mythology, Elektra is widely considered the most psychologically advanced Greek tragedy. The Greek dramatist Sophocles constructed a play that centers on the heroine’s obsession to avenge her father’s murder. Elektra lives in hope that her
Few characters have captured our imagination than Don Quixote, the befuddled knight—a pathetic, aging oddball who dreams of righting the world’s wrongs. The knight is the protagonist of Miguel Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote or ‘The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of
Do you imagine that social climbing is a modern day phenomenon? Think again! Here’s a piece that humorously illustrates this societal failing— Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme Op. 60 by Richard Strauss. It was written between 1911 and 1917 and is a
Elektra (1909), proved crucial to Strauss’s later development as a composer of opera, since it marked the beginning of his collaboration with the young Viennese poet Hugo von Hofmannsthal. This tale of multiple murder and bitter vengeance is musically and
Yo-yo Ma, cello Emanuel Ax, piano Richard Strauss: Cello Sonata in F Major, Op. 6, TrV 115 Richard Strauss was controversial as a person and as a composer, despite being one of the more prominent composers of the 20th Century.
The image of Jesus on the cross has inspired artists of many kinds for centuries. There are of course many striking paintings of the scene by artists from Veláquez’s Cristo crucificado to Salvador Dali’s Christ of Saint John of the
