To those Americans who revere him—sadly, a dwindling number these days—Robert E. Lee is still much a "Marble Man": the noble face of the antebellum South, the tragic embodiment of the Lost Cause, the "perfect" man, as a contemporary deemed him. Even his admirers are unaware of the some of the more interesting details of [...]
Did Beethoven steal tunes from his older contemporary for the "Eroica" Symphony, the Ninth Symphony, and for his most popular and beautiful song? "This entire passage has been stolen from the Mozart symphony in C." —written by Beethoven on one of his own musical sketches It is one of the most popular tunes in all [...]
Here are four recently-published books and four new classical music albums that I have greatly enjoyed this past year… Books I’ve read several excellent biographies (and one great autobiography) this past year. Foremost among the former is Jan Swafford’s magisterial Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph, which could easily be termed the definitive biography of perhaps the greatest [...]
Do you read "conservative" news and opinion sites with trepidation? Do you worry about seeing the tirelessly-repeated "news of the moment" and the echo chamber of "red-meat" political commentary"? Are you sick of superficial commentary on current events, which you forget by the time you wake up the next day? Are you even afraid of [...]
Though his fans will undoubtedly enjoy this engrossing autobiography, it deserves a broader audience because of the beauty of Mr. Springsteen's writing, his penetrating observations about human nature, and his well-crafted history of an interesting and important life. "We remain in the air, the empty space, in the dusty, roots and deep earth, in the [...]
Our experience escaping the hurricane taught me that as God's children, all men are truly brothers. I saw the face of Jesus many times in the faces of our rescuers: people of widely differing life experiences, and of various colors and faiths. You millions, I embrace you. This kiss is for all the world! Brothers, [...]
As I watched a crowd of militant Leftists in Durham, North Carolina this week pull down a statue of a Confederate soldier, I was left not only angry but befuddled by the ignorance of it all: the vitriol of the mob focused on this seemingly inoffensive monument depicting a common soldier, seemingly war-weary and tired, [...]
The Yankee franchise represents the worst side of modern baseball and is thus the fittest of villains in the cosmic drama embodied by the game. "They are the 'Dark Side.' They represent all that is evil about baseball, and about our society in general." —Bill Lee, former major league pitcher It was the late winter [...]
Here is what President Trump would say today, if the present author had been solely assigned the task of writing his inaugural address. My fellow Americans, Today marks the beginning of a new era in which you and I will together will make America great again! I am pleased to have the opportunity today to speak [...]
"Modern society cannot endure—and its survival is immediately in question—without discussion among thinking men." So said Russell Kirk, American conservatism's premier thinker, six decades ago. Dr. Kirk's insight still rings true today. In an age when acerbic sound bytes dominate our political discourse and when most publications offer fleeting, unserious commentary on the issues of the day, there is a greater [...]
It is September that carries with it the final judgment for many baseball teams, and at times it is one particular play that decides a team’s destiny. “April is the cruellest month,” T.S. Eliot wrote in the first lines of The Waste Land, but for baseball fans it is the month of September that marks [...]
“I don’t believe we can have an army without music.” —Robert E. Lee “If we’d had your music, sir, we’d have whipped you out of your boots.” — A Confederate officer at Appomattox to his Union counterpart It would be hard to overestimate the ubiquity and importance of music during the American Civil War. In [...]
The Imaginative Conservative’s co-founder and editor-at-large, Bradley J. Birzer, has received another award for his outstanding, new biography of seminal conservative thinker, Russell Kirk. Following on the heels of The Imaginative Conservative’s own 2015 Book of the Year Award, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute (ISI) has announced that Dr. Birzer has won the 2016 Henry and Anne [...]
Did you know that the man who co-wrote "The Marriage of Figaro," "Don Giovanni," and "Cosi fan tutte" died as an American college professor? "Seldom, if ever indeed, has a more interesting personality come to these shores from Europe." —Joseph Russo, Lorenzo Da Ponte: Poet and Adventurer Opera aficionados will know Lorenzo Da Ponte's name [...]