A Minute with Miles

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 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. And indeed he was one of the greatest examples of this type, because both his performing and his composing activities were on the highest level. During his time, in fact, Rachmaninoff was considered by many to be nothing less than the greatest pianist in the world—and if you go online and check out some of the many Rachmaninoff recordings, I think you’ll see why.

Sibelius was influenced by many of the 19th century composers who preceded him, but his style was always completely personal and impossible to pigeonhole.

Although they had similar training and came under many of the same influences, Debussy's and Ravel's musical styles and techniques were really quite different.

If you see a timpanist bending over his instrument during a concert with his ear close to the drumheads, it’s because timpanists often have to tune their drums to different pitches while everybody else is playing.

It was Beethoven who liberated the timpani from the trumpets, expanding their role and the range of notes they played, and even writing solo passages for them.

It was Beethoven who liberated the timpani from the trumpets, expanding their role and the range of notes they played, and even writing solo passages for them.

"I live in a world of imagination, which is set in motion by something suggested by my intimate surroundings rather than by outside influences, which distract me and give me nothing. I find an exquisite joy when I search deeply in the recesses of myself, and if anything original is to come from me, it can only come that way.”

Like many19th-century composers, Robert Schumann often gave his works picturesque titles. Schumann’s Scenes from Childhood, for example, a set of pieces for solo piano, includes pieces with titles such as “Pleading Child,” and “Frightening.” How literally should we take these titles – and perhaps the picturesque titles of other composers’ works?

Scherzo means “joke,” in Italian, but in Beethoven’s scherzos you won’t usually find anything that qualifies as out-‘n-out funny. What you usually will find is a certain playfulness, with lots of fast notes, abrupt accents, surprises, and quick changes of musical direction.