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.
In an earlier episode, I told the story that Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739-1799) planned on writing a total of 15 symphonies based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses. He presented the Viennese publisher Artaria with a detailed outline of his grand design.
Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf (1739-1799) was a highly respected violin virtuoso and prolific composer. It might be difficult to imagine today, but his popularity was said to have rivalled Haydn, Gluck, and Mozart. I think that might be a little
Leonard Bernstein contributed a modest but significant group of compositions for solo piano. As a noted pianist suggested, “the Bernstein works for solo pianos are a viable addition to present-day keyboard literature, and should not be underestimated.” Among his works
I love a good story, and I love it even more if that story is being told in music. And that’s particularly true of instrumental art music with an explicitly narrative content. I suppose that music always conveys or evokes
The seven images memorialized in Recuerdos de viaje (Memories of Travel) by Isaac Albéniz (1860–1909) take us around Spain from the sea to the Alhambra. His use of his melodies that sound like Spanish folksong was a large part of
Leopold van der Pals (1884–1966) took a different approach to the music of the planets in his 1931/1956 work Sphere-Music to the Dramatic Poem Mönch Wanderer, Op. 84. His Monk Wanderer was originally intended as a stage piece for actors,
Did you know that “World Piano Day” is always celebrated on the 88th day of the year? The reasoning is relatively simple, 88 keys on the piano, celebration on the 88th day of the year, get it? Basically, that means
Starting in 2015, British composer Michael Zev Gordon started to create a musical diary of 6 or 7 pieces per year that capture a ‘one idea or emotional state or a kind of sound’. Sometimes the fragments in the pieces
