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.
Originally published on 9 August 1854, Walden; or, Life in the Woods is widely considered Henry David Thoreau’s masterwork. In a series of 18 essays, Thoreau provides a vivid account of his two years living in isolation in a cabin
A Chilling Embrace Lay your hand, my loveJust lay your hand on my heart, my love;Ah, can you not hear it throbbing in there?A carpenter, wicked and evil, lives there,Fashioning me my coffin.He bangs and hammers day and night,And has
In June 1839, Robert Schumann famously wrote, “All my life I have regarded vocal music as inferior to instrumental music, and have never considered it great art.” Famous indeed, but not his last words on the subject. Only a couple
Johannes Brahms may have had a prickly personality, but he was also deeply admired by quite a few colleagues. Many of them expressed that admiration by dedicating works to Brahms. Today, we’re looking at seven of the most interesting examples
Rock Guitar Covers of Chopin Piano Classics Chopin scholar Jakub Kasperski looked at the use of Frédéric Chopin in popular music and found some interesting links. After his survey, he found that the works that were most popular and most
American composer George Rochberg (1918–2005) occupied a difficult ground in 20th-century modern classical music. Caught between the serial composers of the mid-century and the gradual return to tonal music that followed, he abandoned his long-held serial style after the death
Bedřich Smetana is often hailed as the father of Czech music. In his orchestral masterpieces like Má Vlast, he offers a delightful window into his melodic genius and his emotional connection to his homeland. His compositions for piano are less
The story is brief and mysterious. A father on an urgent mission, riding through the night with his ailing child in his arms to get help. We open in medias res; the piano tells us before the words enter that
