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.
Franz Liszt (1811-1886) was one of the few composers to take on the Ave Maria multiple times. His own religious interests would have guided him to the Ave Maria text, and when he made it his own, he carries us
The comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one of Shakespeare’s most popular works, which has spurred composers’ imaginations, is next in our ten-part series of Shakespeare’s plays. Shakespeare was a young man when he wrote this fanciful tale—two couples that become
Nikolai Gogol, a dramatist, novelist and short story writer of Ukrainian ethnicity, is considered a seminal figure of Russian literary realism. His fundamental romantic sensibility is marvelously infused with strains of Surrealism and the grotesque. In fact, Gogol established a
“The story of the creation,” Joseph Haydn wrote in 1801 “has always been considered the sublimest and most awe-inspiring image for mankind. To accompany this great work with appropriate music could certainly have no other result than to heighten these
The Catholic prayer called either Ave Maria or the Hail Mary has been a familiar setting in music, coming into favour in the Renaissance and extending to the current day. Mary, the mother of Jesus, holds a particularly beloved place
Music can be an all-consuming passion that serves as a daily spiritual and physical exercise. Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) certainly thought that way, as “music grasped me with a power that rapidly relegated all my other interests to the background.” Initially,
“To all appearances,” Edvard Grieg wrote in 1882,”I am living a more peaceful life than ever before, but in reality it is a life full of inward struggle. I am both spiritually and bodily unwell and decide every other day
Bohuslav Martinů composed a large quantity of music in various styles and forms, but according to the composer “in pure chamber music I am always more myself.” His first Piano Trio, nicknamed “Cinq pièces brèves” spontaneously emerged in Paris in
