Music

An Amateur’s Week With Beethoven’s “Harp” Quartet

What do amateurs glean from such a week, inundated in the particulars of one piece of music and its composer?... What a treat is it for a group of amateur string players,...

Van Cliburn, Nikita Khrushchev, and a Lull in the Cold War

At some point during the 1958 International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition, Nikita Khrushchev was asked whether it would be okay to give the prize to the American virtuoso, Van Cliburn... One of the most famous—and unexpected—lulls in the...

On Music and Metaphysics

Please join Peter Kalkavage as he discusses the metaphysics of music: music's role in the liberal arts, the paradox in the union of rational and irrational, order and feeling in its composition, and music's connection and reflection of the deeper order of the natural...

Scott Joplin: American Giant

One of the fathers of authentic American music, Scott Joplin had an enormous influence, reaching even beyond America to Claude Debussy and Igor Stravinsky... “It is never right to play ragtime fast.” This admonition from the...

The Decline of High Art & the Other Polarization

High Art is not going away. There are people who require an art of greater complexity than popular culture usually affords them, who hunger for something deeper, more complex, something that reflects the human experience... There is...

The Divine Element Within

In Modernity, the capacity for effortless knowing is denied, ignored, or misunderstood. As a result, the origin of all knowledge is taken as unaided human effort and activity... The Two Modes of the Mind

The Sacred Music of Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky was not only one of the greatest composers but also one of the great minds and wits of the twentieth century... “Music praises God. Music is well or better able to praise him than the building of the church in all its decoration; it...

The Modern Composer Who Turned Against the Avant-Garde

The music of Michael Kurek is rooted in the past, and his own guiding philosophy is rooted in a love for the transcendent, triune splendor of the good, the true, and the beautiful, a love which is itself a fruit of his Christian faith...

Camille Saint-Saëns: An Underrated Master

Camille Saint-Saëns indeed had a wonderful sense of humor, but it is his serious, abstract works—especially his chamber music—that show him at his Gallic best and assure his place among the great composers... When it comes to...

The Power of Song in Bach’s “St. Matthew Passion”

In the St. Matthew Passion, Bach indulges his gypsy soul. It is as though Bach, in his broad and deep humanity, his capacity for feeling all kinds and degrees of sorrow and joy, was reaching out to all his fellow human beings, believers and non-believers alike, and...

The Gift of the Imagination

Every artist copes with reality by means of his fantasy. Fantasy, better known as imagination, is his greatest treasure, his basic equipment for life. And since his work is his life, his fantasy is constantly in...

Haydn’s Music of Gratitude and Goodness

Franz Joseph Haydn is the most companionable composer. His music is accessible in an almost daily way, without overwhelming us. The whole panoply of life is there but in scale, humanely so, without grotesque exaggeration... May 31st...

“The Wall”

Editor's Note: Bruce Springsteen composed "The Wall" in honor of Walter Cichon, a fellow guitarist and friend from his home town of Freehold, New Jersey, who was killed in the Vietnam War. Cigarettes and a bottle of beer this poem that I wrote for you This black stone and...

“Elegy for Strings”

Editor's Note: Tchaikovsky composed what became known as his "Elegy" in 1884 on a commission from the Moscow Society of Artists, who were honoring Ivan Samarin on the occasion of his fifty years of acting. Tchaikovsky titled the piece for string orchestra, which was meant to open the ceremonies,...