A Minute with Miles

For centuries, composers of classical music have been borrowing and adapting ideas and styles from popular music.

When it comes to the history of the guitar, the only thing that’s certain… is that nothing is certain.

To make an arrangement of a musical composition is to rewrite the composition for a new set of musical forces—to rewrite a wind quintet for string quartet, for example, or to transform a string quartet into a piano trio.

The literal meaning of a capella in Italian is “as in the chapel,” or “in the style of the chapel.” And what has the chapel got to do with it?

Many composers over the years have tried to express in writing what the music of Mozart has meant to them—and to the world.

In the letters of great composers, certain themes come up again and again, especially the composers’ struggles to get their works performed, and the desire—often frustrated—to have those works understood and appreciated.

Sergei Rachmaninoff was an example of one of the great “types” in the history of classical music: the virtuoso performer who was also an important composer.

Jean Sibelius was a fascinating man. He was born the year the American Civil War ended and he died in the year of Sputnik.

There’s very little that’s natural about the physical positions and movements that are required to play most musical instruments, and during the course of practicing and performing, awkward movements may be repeated literally thousands of times a day and millions of times a year, and unnatural positions may be maintained for untold numbers of hours.

The composer is the creator, and long after even the most brilliant and famous performers of the moment are forgotten, it’s the music that will remain.