Music

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,...

From the Sacred to the Profane: More Music for My Desert Island

In truth, much of my favourite music is not sacred but profane, insofar as it is not overtly religious or in the least liturgical; and yet these profane favourites are certainly sublime, reflecting the goodness, truth and beauty of Creation, the harmony of the cosmos and the...

“In Memoriam”

Editor's Note: Jean Sibelius wrote In Memoriam (Op. 59), in memory of Eugen Schauman, a Finnish nationalist who assassinated the Russian Governor-General of the Duchy of Finland, in a bid to further Finnish independence. The work is a funeral march for orchestra. Sibelius composed a first version...

“A Conceited Mediocrity”: Why Tchaikovsky Hated Brahms

Russian composer Pyotr Tchaikovsky had a lot to say about Johannes Brahms’ music—all bad... “I have played over the music of that scoundrel Brahms,” wrote Tchaikovsky in his diary in 1886. “What...

The Relevance of Classical Music

Music was meant to create an effect in its listeners that embraced more than the perception of its sounds alone; it was meant to have an effect deeper than words, deeper than rational thought, and touching the emotions and that mysterious thing which the poets call...

Beethoven the Traditionalist?

What one conceives oneself to be doing and what one is perceived by one’s public to be doing are two different things. For Beethoven the New Path (what later history would name the Second, or “Heroic,” Period) was...

Felix Mendelssohn: The Mozart of the Romantic Age

While original in his style, Felix Mendelssohn was certainly no radical. What he offered was a perfect blending of classical proportion with Romantic fervor. In that sense, he amounts to a kind of missing link between Mozart and the remainder of the nineteenth century...