Best of Laura's Music Studio 2015

Here are the most popular posts posted here in 2015. A few posts you may have missed, so check them out.

- Piano Mastery Talks - Reading Together
- Piano Mastery Talks - Reading Together - Paderewski
- Piano Mastery Talks - Reading Together - Schelling
- Piano Mastery Talks - Reading Together - Consolo
- Music: An Art and a Language - Reading Together - The Sonata Form

Happy New Year, dear readers!

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Music: An Art and a Language - Reading Together - Chopin

"The pianoforte should always be played with a keen regard for this power of shading, of nuance; the tones should undulate like the winds or the waves."
(location 2820, Kindle Edition)

"Chopin's works are so instinct with genius and have proved to be so immortal that they may well be considered as ideal witnesses to the triumph of quality over mere quantity or sensational display."
(location 2950, Kindle Edition)

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Music: An Art and a Language - Reading Together - Schumann and Mendelssohn

"Schumann's pianoforte style is compounded of two factors: first, his intensely subjective and varied imagination which, nourished by the love of Romantic literature, craved an individual mode of expression; second, a power of concentration and of organic structure which was largely derived from a study of Bach and of the later works of Beethoven."
(location 2535, Kindle Edition)

"Mendelssohn, on the other hand, though not lacking in poetic fancy and warmth, was cautious—a born conservative; and his early classical training, together with the opulent circumstances of his life, served as a natural check upon the freedom of genius."
(location 2703, Kindle Edition)

"To suggest the attitude which we of to-day should take towards Mendelssohn—he may justly be admired as a musician of great natural gifts, of high ideals and of unusually finished technique in many branches of composition." (location 2760, Kindle Edition)

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Music: An Art and a Language - Reading Together - Schubert and Weber

"Classical works are objectively beautiful, commending themselves to everyone like works of nature, or, let us say, like decorative patterns in pure design. Romantic works are subjective, charged with individuality and demand a sensitive and sympathetic appreciation on the part of the hearer."
(location 2360, Kindle Edition)

"Here again Weber's fame rests more upon his influence than upon lasting achievement; as to the importance of this influence, however, there can be no doubt."
(location 2517, Kindle Edition)

"Of marked versatility, of no mean literary skill and of such social magnetism and charm that he might properly be considered a man of the world, as well as an artist, Weber was thus enabled to do pioneer work in raising the standard of musicianship and in bringing the art of music and ordinary, daily life into closer touch."
(location 2521, Kindle Edition)

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Music: An Art and a Language - Reading Together - Beethoven

"He is the embodiment of that spirit of individualism, of human freedom and self-respect which found its expression in the French Revolution, in our American War of Independence and in the entire alteration of social standards."
(location 1805, Kindle Edition)

"The unshaken hold which his music has upon the affections of mankind is due chiefly to two striking characteristics: first, the way in which he dramatized everything—themes, instruments, even single notes, i.e., treating them as actual factors in life itself rather than as artistic abstractions; second, the spirituality and sublimity in his immortal message."
(location 2286, Kindle Edition)


Some resources on Beethoven and his works:
Lesson Resources on Ludwig van Beethoven
Lesson Resources on Nature-Themed Classical Music

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