Into the face that most resembles Christ now look: for by her radiance only she can render you prepared for seeing Christ. (Paradiso 32.85-87) So says St. Bernard to the pilgrim Dante, urging him to gaze into the countenance of Mary, as they stand at the threshold of the Beatific Vision. They are words I have … Read more
Bruckner at the beach? I don’t think so. Sand and high seriÂousness are strange bedfellows. So let us construct the aural equivalent of the summer reading list based upon music that is amiable, off the beaten path, and, well, fun. I happen to have a huge inventory of CD recommendaÂtions that fits the bill. The … Read more
Thomas Aquinas put things succinctly. He found numÂberless things about which to think. He could, with few words, illuminate the whole of what is in logiÂcal form. He wrote little about politiÂcal things. He discussed other topics normally called “political”—property, rebellion, prudence, justice, virtue, and common good. In commenting on the Gospels of Matthew and … Read more
What wonders we American Catholics have seen. Schools, whose joists were sawn and spiked by the hands of men who would send their children there, now empty, crumbling; whole orders of nuns doffing their habits, then their faith and reason too, worthy societies dwindling into a few old men with beers and a shuffleboard table, … Read more
I seldom mix music and politics, although as Socrates pointed out, they are related through music’s influence on the order of the soul. However, I begin this month’s survey with a release that is explicitly political. I recently had an uncanny experience that stretches the meaning of coincidence. I was in the Czech Republic speaking … Read more
Walking across the campus to class, I saw a panel truck parked on the street with a sticker on the tailgate that read: “The Power of Pride.” Below the words was a red, white, and blue patriotic banner with stars on it. The phrase struck me. It contains many paradoxes. Pride can be a dangerous … Read more
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father; God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God; begotten, not made; of one Being with the Father. Through Him all things were made. We’ve said those words thousands of times at Sunday Mass. We know … Read more
Several new CD releases bring to mind the fate of music after the 1917 Russian Revolution. Heady times, they were—for a while. Not only did the epaulets come off the uniforms and the bands from marriage, but the conductors dropped their batons in the new classless society. When the proletariat paradise did not emerge from … Read more
There are certain “one-work” composers whose renown, however unfairly, seldom extends beyond a single composition. Take English composer Gustav Hoist, who lived to rue the popularity of The Planets, which eclipsed his many jewel-like compositions. His countryman and exact contemporary Frank Bridge (1879-1941) seems to have suffered a similar fate, though in his case as … Read more
Flannery O’Connor said that “poetry is the proper naming of the things of God.” Genesis is a book full of “naming.” Adam names the animals. In Hebrew, a relation of identity exists between a name and the being it names. In a real way, we only “possess” something when we name it, when we call … Read more
A colleague mentioned hearing “White Christmas” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” in Japanese during Christmastide, seasonal music popular among those who generally do not believe in what Christmas represents. Similarly, during my European years, I was struck by the different cultural expressions surrounding Christmas among those who did historically hold it. My Australian … Read more
Jose Serebrier is one of today’s premier conductors. He burst on the scene at a very young age as a protege of Leopold Stokowski, who proclaimed him “the greatest master of orchestral balance.” Born in Uruguay of Russian and Polish parents, SerÂebrier started composing music at the age of nine, shortly after he had begun … Read more
On a wintry day in Boston stood a man “devoid of genius, and with only an ordinary education,” eulogizing an insurrectionist hanged hundreds of miles away. He had too much integrity and too little imagination to compromise the single great principle of his life. “What is it,” he cried to the crowds gathered to hear … Read more
Last November, I marshaled some evidence against the inanity of the proposition that the symphony is dead. Despite attempts to execute it, the symphony thrived in the 20th century and has prospered into our own era. It is hardly necessary to guide you to Sibelius, Shostakovich, Martinu, Prokofiev, Vaughan Williams, and the other big names. … Read more
In his Confessions, the young Augustine proudly tells of coming across a copy of Aristotle’s Categories, which his professors were having a difficult time understanding. Augustine boldly says that he read the short treatise and had no difficulty whatever. The Categories is generally a brief treatment of the ten ways of predication that we can … Read more
There is a lot of territory to cover to bring a flood of spring releases to your attention for this summer’s delectation. This will have to be done at the expense of a general theme tying them all together or of a detailed analysis of each CD. I am, however, taken by American composer Beth … Read more
What needs salvation in our time, after our own souls, is the classical English language. From what does it need saving? From ideological censorship busily changing, crimping, sissifying, and otherwise ruining our great tongue. All of this is occurring in the name of “diversity,” “sensitivity,” and “rights.” It is really censorship, practiced in the highest … Read more
There is no 20th-century composer I am more predisposed to like than Robert Simpson (1921-1997). I have been in such sympathy with his endeavors that I was actually a member of the Robert Simpson Society, a group in Great Britain that promotes his music. Since the 1980s, Hyperion Records has brought out a steady succession … Read more
Imagine a rash of fires, lit by fire chiefs, in certain ghettos of Eastern Europe during the 1930s. A synagogue burns to the ground in Kraków, another in Prague, a Jewish community house in Danzig, the Beth-salem Orphanage in Leipzig, and yet another synagogue in Bratislava. All are destroyed. Imagine that half of the leaders … Read more
Truth has become unfriendly. We “hold” these truths that no truth can exist, that all views are created equal, that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are defined only by ourselves. They have no objective content. We have nothing in common except that we have nothing in common. Our civic peace exists on the … Read more
