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.
Requiring a large orchestra and with 10 movements, the first symphony written by Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) was a monumental achievement. Commissioned by Sergey Koussevitzky for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, it took Messiaen 2 years to write it, completing it in
Beginning with a crash and a boom, Aaron Copland (1900-1990) beings his Fanfare for the Common Man. The work was inspired by a number of sources, both political and musical. On the political side, reference is made to a 1942
Born in Shanghai in 1951, Chen Qigang is a leading Chinese composer who divides his working life between Beijing and Paris. He was, as you might well remember, appointed director of music for the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony in 2008.
In 1926, the composer György Kurtág was born in the town of Lugoj, a Hungarian/German settlement that was ceded to Romania by the treaty of Versailles in 1919. Growing up at a cultural and linguistic crossroads, it’s hardly surprising that
Already a skilled pianist and organist, young Max Reger (1873-1916) saw performances of Meistersinger and Parsifal during his first Bayreuth pilgrimage. “When I heard Parsifal for the first time, as a fifteen-year-old, I cried for two weeks, and then I
Joseph Haydn was highly successful in his musical profession and the business aspects surrounding it. Yet, his personal life was somewhat of a mess. Under contract with Count Morzin, Haydn fell in love with Therese Keller. However, once he secured
In the early 20th century, ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev changed the way he put on ballets: he would now commission original scores. Not only that, but for one of his first ballet productions, it would be based on a new
We don’t often think of Beethoven as a composer for the ballet – as an original composer, that is, rather than having his music used in later times for ballet. In 1801, however, Salvatore Viganò (1769-1821) came to Vienna and
