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 Rossini’s The Barber of Seville, we are introduced to the ever-enterprising Figaro. He solves Count Almaviva’s courting problem with Rosina by thwarting her guardian’s marriage intentions. Count Almaviva and Rosina appear again with Figaro in The Marriage of Figaro,
It’s probably one of the most instantly recognized ring tones on your mobile, and piano students are expressly forbidden to play it in piano showrooms! By now you must have guessed that I am talking about Beethoven’s Bagatelle Für Elise.
Ah, you thought you knew all the Princesses of England from Diana on out. Princess Edith comes from a considerably earlier time, being daughter of Edward the Peaceful (943-975) and Wulfthryth, nun at Wilton Abbey, who had been abducted by
Until recordings became common in the latter part of the 20th century, the only way to hear some of the great works was to attend a performance or to have your own orchestra. For the rest of the music-loving world,
Haydn’s Mass No. 10 has a nickname that’s understandable, the Paukenmesse (Timpani Mass) due to its use of the timpani. It also has a name written by Haydn into the manuscript, ‘Missa in tempore belli,’ i.e., Mass in Time of
In 1897, Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) wrote his last symphonic poem and, in contrast to the preceding four he’d just finished, The Water Goblin, The Noon Witch, The Golden Spinning Wheel, and The Wood Dove, this last work had no story
In August 1959, Jubilee Hall in Aldeburgh was undergoing a complete refurbishment, and to celebrate its reopening a year later, a new opera was definitely required. Since Benjamin Britten already was the artistic director of the Festival at that time,
Nothing stokes the fire of adolescence and the enormous physical and psychological changes that occur during the teenage years quite like the teenage girl and/or boy next door. Franz Schubert spent his formative years in Lichtental, the ninth district in
