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.
While Maurice Ravel and Richard Strauss have received the highest accolades in the historiography of classical music, the contemporary musical world of Paul Wittgenstein was numerously populated by a host of highly talented composers and performers. And a commission from
The American composer Henry Cowell took a mid-18th century musical style and brought it forward to the modern world in his set of 18 Hymn and Fuguing Tunes, written between 1943 and 1964. A fuguing tune (not to be confused
The Polish pianist Theodore Leschetizky (1830-1915) gave his public debut at age 9. He performed a Concertino by Czerny in the city of Lemberg, with the orchestra directed by Franz Xaver Mozart, the youngest surviving son of Wolfgang Amadeus. After
The new city of the new century, Beijing has grasped the future and has taken its history with it. Its literary background, its Forbidden City, its love for its traditions, and its desire to lead the future give us a
The undisputed masterwork to emerge from the Wittgenstein commissions was the Concerto pour la main gauche by Maurice Ravel. Yet the collaboration between composer and interpreter was decidedly acrimonious. Composed between 1929 and 1930, Ravel was intrigued by the challenge
Starting in 1848, Anton Rubinstein was in great shape musically. He had an attentive patron in the Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna, sister-in-law to Tsar Nicholas I. In addition to his teaching and performing careers, he also composed 3 symphonies, 5
Completed in April 1893, the 18 Morceaux, Op. 72 were Tchaikovsky’s last works for solo piano. Putting together the relevant musical materials for a series of piano pieces he told his brother, “in order to earn some money, I will
More so than any other city in China, Hong Kong has long been a symbol of the exotic other. As an English colony, it was a good place for the Westerner to visit because you knew that someone, somewhere would
