The foundation of a correct piano playing habit is the whole arm action principle – playing from the entire relaxed weight of our arms – and not by taking the needed force only from our fingers.
Besides protecting us from tension and pain, this technique enables us to create a deep, beautiful piano tone – as compared to the shallow, percussive sound that comes out of the instrument when we strike …
In mid-July 1848 the London season ended and Chopin was invited to stay with Jane Stirling’s relatives in Scotland.
He left London via Euston on August 5th and travelled up the new West Coast route via Birmingham and Carlisle, arriving the same evening at Edinburgh’s Lothian Road station.
Following a two-day stay in the city at the Douglas Hotel, he travelled on to Calder House, home of Jane’s brother-in-law, Lord Torphichen, where …
Chopin visited London and the British Isles from 20th April to 23rd November 1848 because of the revolution which broke out in France on February 24th 1848. The government of King Louis Philippe was overthrown and the royal family fled to England. Chopin earned his living teaching wealthy pupils and most of these fled along with everyone else, so he lost his livelihood overnight. Most of the musicians in Paris …
In the mid-thirties of the nineteenth century the musical world realized that Beethoven had changed the traditional, secular position of the composer of music towards the community; he had changed it radically especially after 1810 or so.
Beethoven defined himself as a "Poet of Music", because "artist" in his time was a generic term, but above all because "Poet" referred to the intellectual world rather than the artisan one.
Mozart was a …