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.
Brazilian composer Oscar Lorenzo Fernández (1897–1948) based the idea of his second symphony, written in 1947, on the life of Fernão Dias Paes Leme (1608–1681), known as ‘The Emerald Hunter’. This 17th-century explorer was granted a patent to become ‘governor
What does the muse of music look like? In the imagination of countless painters, that essentially abstract concept was depicted by a graceful yet stern and beautiful female figure holding or playing a musical instrument. Reality, however, can be a
Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) had an interesting personality, to say the least. His vanity was notorious as he boasted of his fame and illustrious patrons. Apparently, he also told everybody who wanted to know or not, that he “could compose a
Acclaimed as one of the supreme achievements in world literature The Brothers Karamazov was Fyodor Dostoevsky’s largest and final work. Published as a serial in The Russian Messenger from January 1879 to November 1880, Dostoevsky died less than four months
In 1929, Ernst Krenek spent his summer holiday in the Austrian Alps. He called that trip, “a pilgrimage to the sacred shrines of Austria’s landscape and history” and he immediately set to work on a travelogue celebrating the landscape. He
The First Piano Concerto by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) is one of the most popular concertos ever written. But it is not a piece for the faint-hearted. It makes huge technical demands on the performer, and because of its dramatic
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) was left bereft at the death of his mother in December 1888, and the cold winter winds in Paris persuaded him that perhaps a warmer climate might better suit him. Accordingly, he left Paris for Algiers where
The idea of the prelude is old, dating back to the first ones, called ‘praeambula’ in the mid-15th century. They were originally works to introduce other works, i.e., something that comes ahead of the main work. We are familiar with
