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.
We all know the great Venetian opera librettist and poet Lorenzo da Ponte (1749-1838) from his collaboration on three of Mozart’s most celebrated operas, The Marriage of Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787), and Così fan tutte (1790). It is much
Arnold Schoenberg’s Ode to Napoleon, Op. 41, for string quartet, piano, and reciter, was completed on 12 June 1942. The reciter takes his text from Lord Byron and his Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, written in 1814. The occasion was the
We’ve looked at compositions dedicated to Johannes Brahms before, let’s put our focus on various chamber music pieces dedicated to Brahms this time. Heinrich von Herzogenberg: Piano Quartet in B-flat Major, Op. 95 Heinrich von Herzogenberg: Piano Quartet in B-flat
Two visually stunning icons habitually greet visitors to Japan. One, of course, is the iconic Mount Fuji towering over the Kanto plains. The other icon is rather more subtle and it was first brought to Japan in 1502 by Chinese
There are countless reasons why composers attached dedications to their scores. In a wonderful study, Emily H. Green has attempted to unravel the complex relationship between composers, publishers, and consumers of music. For one, works might be dedicated to patrons,
English composer Anna Clyne (b. 1980) took Leo Tolstoy’s comment that ‘Music is the shorthand of emotion. Emotions, which let themselves be described in words with such difficulty, are directly conveyed to man in music, and in that is its
The world of nature has long fascinated composers, first, with imitating the songs around them in the birds, bringing in the sound of running water or splashing brooks, and the sound of insects. Canadian composer Vivian Fung picked up the
Danish composer Else Marie Pade (1924-2016) was a pioneer in electronic music. Her initial music studies were in piano and composition, moving into 12-tone technique. In 1954, inspired by the first electronic composers such as Pierre Schaeffer, she became Denmark’s
