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.
Korean television dramas tend to be rather popular throughout Southeast and East Asia. And the 2006 TV series “Hwang Jini” was one of the most popular and successful of all times. The title references the most famous poetess of the
Norwegian composer Geirr Tveitt (born Nils Tveit) (1908–1981) lost the majority of his compositions in a disastrous fire in his barn studio in 1970. It’s estimated that 80% of his manuscripts, kept in neat wooden chests, went up in the
Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of music by Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840). The music might be over 200 years old, but it is still jaw-dropping. The level of virtuosity is truly astounding, and it’s not surprising that Paganini was
In 2024, let’s look at a 24 in music. The Austrian composer and virtuosic pianist Sigismond Thalberg (1812–1871) excelled at a particular 19th-century piano genre that’s largely disappeared, i.e., the operatic paraphrase or fantasy. Thalberg came to Vienna at age
In 1918, the American sewing-machine heiress and patroness Winnaretta Singer, the Princess de Polignac, commissioned Manuel de Falla (1876–1946) to create pieces for small orchestra and singers for her marionette theatre. In 1905, Spain had celebrated the 300th anniversary of
In 1921 Erwin Schulhoff (1894-1942) wrote to Alban Berg. “I have an overwhelming passion for modern dance, and I sometimes even dance night after night with the ladies at the bar… quite simply from enthusiasm for rhythm and from unconscious
The English conductor Martyn Brabbins decided that, after 120 years, Elgar’s Enigma Variations needed an update. As his own 60th birthday was coming in 2019, Brabbins commissioned, with the help of the BBC, ‘a new set of Enigma Variations’. Elgar
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849) had a wonderous gift for combining melody with an adventurous harmonic sense. Paired with an intuitive understanding of formal design and a brilliant piano technique, Chopin composed some of the most beloved compositions in Classical music. And