At its best, Aaron Copland’s Americana style is one of the great, ingenious, and enduring achievements in music. Its greatness is not diminished by its widespread imitation by lesser talents in movies, television shows, and commercials, where it has served as a ready way to evoke the Far West, small-town life, or other phases of [...]
Like prayer and meditation, writing helps make sense of things, to cut through the clutter of life, to find mental clarity and order—both for the writer himself and in turn for the readers. The act of writing helps the writer to know himself and the reader in turn to know himself, to know that he [...]
At worst, “faith” can become a bland word standing for little more than a vaguely pleasant and praiseworthy feeling; thus, people are described as having faith in themselves, faith in life, etc. This is a debasement of the term, however. Properly, faith is the state of soul and act of will that accepts and hopes [...]
The development of mechanical reproduction and transmission at the dawn of the 20th century changed how we experience music. It remains true that technology has allowed us to extend, amplify, and disseminate the experience of art. This is, in itself, a good thing. The question is how we use this gift. In the past, when [...]
Author Neil Butterworth alerts us to a classical side of Americana which is too often ignored, certainly compared to the attention given our accomplishments in literature. Our achievements in serious music are in no way inferior, and they deserve to be passionately sung. The American Symphony, by Neil Butterworth (366 pages, Routledge, 2020) The contribution [...]
As we know, the question of what progress is, and whether it exists at all, is a vexed one. This goes also for the arts, and specifically music. Music, particularly our Western classical tradition of music, certainly develops through time. The music of Wagner sounds very different from the music of Palestrina, and in turn [...]
At its core, superstition is treating as God things or persons that are not God. Superstition is a failure in faith and reason. It is a key human pitfall, one that will be around as long as human beings are human, and one we must guard against whatever its source. “Superstition” is a word encountered [...]
In hearing the Bible read, the Word takes flesh before us and changes the souls of those who hear it. David Suchet’s delivery in his audiobook version combines force and gentleness. Never do you sense that he is simply doing a celebrity gig, or offering the Bible as a literary monument; he truly believes in [...]
Absent joy, absent the vision and expectation of eternal happiness, we lose ourselves in the immediate. When we forget about our final end, we become absorbed in the means, in technique, in minutia.It is necessary to find our way back to joy, to rekindle that flame. Much ink has been spilled in distinguishing among the [...]
Religious teaching tells us that God destined us for eternal life, but that sin caused death to enter the world. A great mythopoetic idea—but how are we to understand it? One of the most striking statements about Easter I have ever read comes from Oscar Wilde. Wilde was commenting on the contrast between the Middle [...]
In "The Marble Faun," we sense Nathaniel Hawthorne, descendent of Puritans, coming to terms with what some call the “Catholic Thing,” transcending the assumptions of his own culture and society in an open-minded reflection on history and art. Nathaniel Hawthorne classed The Marble Faun, his last novel, among his “romances,” works of fiction blending fantasy [...]
Joseph T. Stuart shows us that the relationship between the Enlightenment and Christianity was not strictly one of opposition and conflict. Rather, the Enlightenment was a general program and set of ideas that influenced all sectors of life, including religion itself. Rethinking the Enlightenment: Faith in the Age of Reason, by Joseph T. Stuart (351 [...]
Music’s purity and detachment from other fields of activity means that it is has a purifying effect on the soul. It frees us from captivity to the world of things and from history, ideology, and politics, and raises us to an experience of pure emotional and spiritual states. Music is often claimed to be—and valued [...]
In a world that tells us that truth is relative and subjective and self-expression is king, aesthetics teaches us to draw meaningful distinctions, to make value judgments, to admire form and reject formlessness. Aesthetics helps us understand what is unique, beautiful, and pleasing in the things that surround us. Aesthetics is generally understood to be [...]