The only way forward for conservatives is unabashed courage and an utter refusal to continue to accept the status quo that says we are not valuable in culture, academia, and polite society. We must remember who we are and live with conviction. We are the harbingers of joy, hope, sacrifice, and humanity! This week has [...]
St. Cecilia Mass is the common name of a solemn mass in G major by Charles Gounod, composed in 1855 and scored for three soloists, mixed choir, orchestra and organ. The official name is Messe solennelle en l’honneur de Sainte-Cécile, in homage of St. Cecilia, the patron saint of music. The work was assigned CG 56 in the [...]
I have some pointed reasons as to why I "came out" as a conservative artist in 2020. Although I dislike this phrase for its melodrama and banality, one needs to speak the language of our time—if not for relatability, then for search terms and algorithms. Such is the piteous tightrope of the artist navigating a [...]
Piety and patriotism go together. In the profundity of our vocation, we've chosen as our national symbol an eagle, flying upwards and onwards to the source of all our rights and liberties, unto God! "The Glory of Being an American" originally aired on Bishop Sheen's popular television show, "Life Is Worth Living." Please enjoy this [...]
The World Turned Upside Down" is an English ballad. It was first published on a broadside in the middle of the 1640s as a protest against the policies of Parliament relating to the celebration of Christmas. Parliament believed the holiday should be a solemn occasion, and outlawed traditional English Christmas celebrations. There are several versions [...]
For me, Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony will be forever linked to my life as a Bosnian refugee. In a time of great suffering, this music brought me hope. No amount of ideological nonsense will destroy its inherent beauty and its constant call for the restoration of humanity’s greatness. Western civilization and culture have been under [...]
My solace is gone My heart feels dead, It’s gone forever, Forevermore fled. His absence is To me a grave; The world seems lifeless Without his gaze. […]
Sir Arthur Bliss created a piece of music that celebrates the life of the senses and the joy of creation, evoking deep cultural memories as well as a personal energy and dynamism born of bitter experience. “A Colour Symphony” stands as the most intellectually and emotionally satisfying attempt to yoke color to music. Many [...]
In the days after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Bruce Springsteen, who had watched the smoking devastation of lower Manhattan from a point across the river in New Jersey, and who had lost friends as the World Trade Center towers crumbled, was in Rumson, when a passing driver yelled at him: “Bruce, we [...]
Johnny Mercer Is the Great American Songbook still being written? The so-called Great American Songbook is defined as a canon of the memorable “standards” of popular song that helped to define American culture in the first half of the 20th century. Its great composers included Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, the Gershwins, and Jerome [...]
Who goes there riding through the night and fog?— A father and son come journeying along. He holds him tight as he rides through the storm, He grips him safely and he keeps him warm. […]
In July 1811, Ludwig van Beethoven accepted a commission to provide incidental music to two plays that were to be performed at the opening of the new Hungarian Theatre in Pest. Authored by August von Kotzebue, King Stephen: or Hungary’s First Benefactor and The Ruins of Athens were nationalistic dramas in the German singspiel format (combining [...]
Can an unbeliever, a denier of the faith, produce such music as Beethoven did in his Missa Solemnis? It has long been fashionable in music history textbooks to speak of Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis as a purely artistic statement that, to be blunt, uses the texts of the Catholic Mass as a convenient springboard for musical experimentation and [...]
Franz Joseph Haydn composed the Mass in Time of War, his tenth setting of the Roman Catholic Mass in 1796, in the city of Eisenstadt, Austria, where he was the composer-in-residence-for Prince Esterhazy. At the time of its writing in August and its premier in December, French Revolutionary were winning victories in Italy and Germany [...]