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.
The legendary pianist, composer, and pedagogue Leopold Godowsky was a world traveler. He considered “travel not only a way of lifting the creative intellect, but also a philosophical, spiritual enterprise, a way of advancing one’s journey of self-discovery.” Drawing inspiration
We’ve seen him with this tongue sticking out… we’ve seen him concerned with the implications of nuclear energy… and we’ve seen him behind the bow on the violin. But, as an inspiration, we have to take the words of one
Gaetano Donizetti followed the resounding success of Anna Bolena with two additional serious operas, Lucrezia Borgia of 1833, and Lucia di Lammermoor of 1835. Rossini regarded Lucia as Donizetti’s supreme operatic achievement. It epitomized the Italian Romantic spirit of the
By the late 1950’s George Rochberg was celebrated as America’s first and foremost master of composition in a serial language. One of the great leaders of the American avant-garde, Rochberg’s journey to a newly found language based on the tonal
One of the most prolific Italian composers in the second quarter of the 19th Century, Gaetano Donizetti’s (1797-1848) reputation invariably stands or falls with his 70 works for the operatic stage. Robert Schumann spitefully called Donizetti “a composer of music
In the month before his friend Ferdinand Walcher quit Vienna for a posting in Venice, Schubert had been a torchbearer at Beethoven’s funeral. The death of his greatest inspiration, whom he had only been able to meet days before Beethoven’s
When Joseph Haydn arrived in England in January 1791, he found lodgings with the impresario Salomon in Great Pulteney Street, opposite the pianoforte shop of John Broadwood. At that time, Haydn was the most famous composer in Europe, and London
Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798) is still known to this day for his ‘complicated and elaborate affairs with women’ – not bad for someone nearly 300 years old. He ran in the highest social circles in Europe, and in addition to the
