Of all the music of the world, Western classical music is distinctive by virtue of its complexity, both technical and emotional, and for projecting a compelling sense of drama and narrative. In it we hear nothing less than the human soul reflected through the medium of sound. When thinking or writing about Western classical music, [...]
If American philosopher William James offers no systematic defense of religion as Aquinas did, that was never his intent; what he does is show that faith is in tune with man’s nature, experience, and aspirations. That, it seems to me, is nothing to disparage and indeed something to celebrate. Preparing a study guide recently for [...]
The spiritual life (including the prayer and rites of religion) and the cultural life (including the artistic and intellectual cultivation of the human person in its countless forms) together ensure that life is more than a blind cycle, a march leading nowhere. They reveal the sense of our pilgrimage and light a path to our [...]
The psalms offer themselves as a constant companion through life, anticipating and giving voice to every spiritual concern we may have. They contain a world of thought and feeling, imagery and lyricism. And they supply the profoundest substance to all those of us who need material for our prayer or who don’t always pray as [...]
Johann Sebastian Bach shows how mind and soul, spirit and body connect. In its complex richness and wholeness his music suggests the unity of faith and reason, science, and imagination. Full of relationships that stimulate the ear and the mind, it expresses the multifold splendor of creation itself. “To strip human nature until its divine [...]
While there have been countless classical pieces about a single season—spring music alone is almost a cliché—complete seasonal cycles are a rarity in the classical canon. If we dig into the repertoire a bit, we find a handful of seasons cycles apart from Vivaldi’s perennial favorite. Here I have settled on cycles by Haydn, Roussel, [...]
Susan Treacy's "The Music of Christendom" serves as a useful introduction to whet one’s appetite, but it could have been considerably more fleshed out. Ultimately this book is a primer, something to spark interest in the rich world of classical music in a primarily religious audience. The Music of Christendom, by Susan Treacy (Ignatius Press, [...]
Beethoven's Fourth Symphony is radiantly joyful music, filled with sunlight, humor, charm, serenity, and contentment. What is Beethoven trying to say in this work? Let us not get mired in the muck of life; let us remember the Paradise we lost and the Heaven to which we are aspiring. In the canon of Ludwig van [...]
Joseph Butler—Anglican bishop, theologian, and philosopher—strikes me as a man deeply involved with the great program of Christian humanism, one who did his bit to guide the ship of Western thought back to its moorings after skepticism had blown it off course. The Analogy of Religion, by Joseph Butler, edited by David McNaughton (259 pages, [...]
Mozart’s genius consisted in absorbing, building upon, and transcending the musical influences of his day. The emotional complexity of his music raises it above the gracious, charming, but often superficial and forgettable aesthetics of the rococo era in which he was raised. In an essay in this journal titled “The Wild and Terrible Mozart,” Stephen [...]
Periods of artistic history are not monolithic, nor does the history as a whole consist of a single straight line. This is especially true of the bustling and diverse 20th century, which produced a good deal of music that continues the great humane Western tradition—a tradition that combines passion and intellect, the personal and the [...]
How do we acquire knowledge about these deepest of questions? People who accept the Judeo-Christian worldview will accept the validity of both faith and reason as sources of knowledge and paths to truth. These two factors interweave and penetrate each other constantly, and the degree of importance or validity that one assigns to one or [...]
“Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day” hearkens back to an era when theological ideas were part of everyone’s mental awareness, ripe for poetry and song. Though the idea of Christ and humanity being united as bridegroom and bride is a classic Christian motif, we are surprised to find it in a popular Christmas carol, and [...]
The ideas of Creation (God making all things through an act of his will) and Incarnation (God being present to his creation) are the reason for the West’s creativity in the arts and sciences, a creativity instigated by Christian minds building upon the classical past. If you happen to read any part of Daniel J. [...]