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.
Gregor Piatigorsky (1903-1976) is rightfully considered one of the most important cellists of the 20th century. Essentially a performer with modern sensibilities, his playing “is characterized by an appealing, immaculate quality, with an especially vibrant tone, easy delivery and a
Summer and boats – for countries built around water systems, ‘messing about in boats’ is an idyllic summer treat. The line, of course, comes from Kenneth Grahame’s 1908 children’s book, The Wind and the Willows, where Ratty remarks to Mole:
When I was writing my blog on the Estonian composer Eduard Tubin, I came across a quote that reads, “Eduard Tubin is to Estonia what Jean Sibelius is to Finland.” This struck me as a very insightful statement. Both composers
Maurice Delage (1879-1961) studied with Maurice Ravel for about ten years in the 1920s, and his teacher proclaimed him “the supreme French composer of his day.” Roughly ten years earlier, however, Delage accompanied his father on a business trip to
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
