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 the early 19th century, composers and performers started to look again at the music of earlier times. Choral societies around Germany started to look at the music of the Renaissance and Baroque, such as compositions by Palestrina and Carissimi
The composer and violinist Louis Spohr (1784-1859) is largely lost to us today but at his time, was as highly regarded a composer as Beethoven and, as a violinist, was compared to Paganini as a virtuoso.
Wilhelm Petersen-Berger (1867-1942) was a feared and controversial music critic for a Stockholm newspaper from 1896 to 1930. He hated the music of Arnold Schoenberg and his followers, and fought tooth and nail against the increasing influence of modernism in
Frederick Delius’ opera A Village Romeo and Juliet leaves in a puzzle with the title – is this a tragedy of young love like Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, or does the addition of ‘A Village’ make it something else?
Pauline Viardot (1821-1910) was one of the most celebrated mezzo-sopranos of her time! During a remarkable career spanning almost a quarter of a century, she performed on the most prestigious stages around the world, and her distinguished interpretations decisively shaped
Ravi Shankar’s opera Sukanya receives its world premier with a four city UK tour in May 2017. The work is a collaboration between the Royal Opera House of Covent Garden and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. It takes as its subject
In 1967, Aaron Copland wrote a commissioned work for the New York Philharmonic’s 125th anniversary. The twelve-tone piece Inscape opens with a bang – with 11 of the 12 tones of the scale sounding at once.
When the English music historian Charles Burney traveled to the continent to collect materials for his History of Music he predictably also visited the city of Mannheim. Burney was simply in awe of all the musical activities happening at the
