By: Pam DeVier “I simply cannot understand how people can live without work, and how many of them do, especially the higher aristocracy… I despise them because of this.” – Dora Pejačević, from a letter to her friend, Baroness Rosa Lumbe-Mladota, written during or immediately after World War I. (Pejačević spent the war working directly on…
By: Pam DeVier January 1776. Mozart turns 20 years old on the 27th and composes his Serenade No. 6 in D major, K. 239, better known as his Serenata notturna, a redundant title scribbled on the original manuscript in his father’s hand. While the United States was on the brink of declaring its independence, Mozart was…
By: Pam DeVier For me, the work of composing is like sculpting a stone, not like transmitting the sounds of imagination or inspiration. Grażyna Bacewicz, October 23, 1958 A virtuoso violinist, pianist, and prolific composer, Grażyna Bacewicz (pronounced grah-ZHEE-nah baht-SEH-vich) rejected the romanticized idea of the composer as a passive conduit. A student of both…
