James Gray’s 2019 film “Ad Astra” is science fiction at its best: a window not into technology and life in the future, but a reflection on what is enduring in human life. And it is the brokenness of humans, particularly of men whose fathers are absent, that is the true story here. Every man [...]
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 [...]
Roman death masks—called “imagines”—were actually wax models impressed directly on the face during life, and they bore a remarkable likeness to the person. Displayed during the funerals of the elite, they served as a link between the present and the past and were meant to inspire attendees to patriotic virtue. The recent defacement of [...]
If you have never wept for joy at, or been shaken to the roots of your being by, music, here is the music to do it. Should I ever have the privilege of hearing God’s orchestra play, I am not sure what I will hear. But if it is Sibelius’s Fifth Symphony, I will know [...]
As we attempt to understand Marianne Moore’s baseball poems, it is important to see the contextual influence of her brother and their mutual interest in Pauline Christianity, a tradition they never abandoned. There is some mystery in the space between sport and religion that many Christian athletes inhabit and of which Marianne Moore is [...]
DuBose Heyward’s timeless lyrics and George Gershwin’s iconic melody in “Summertime” speak wisdom to our era of uncertainty. When we hear this American classic, may we always feel the presence of the Lord, remembering that God’s greatest desire is to be with each one of us in heaven for all eternity. “Summertime,” the classic [...]
Poland’s reforms and constitution, Edmund Burke thought, offered real meaning, much closer to the experience of the American Revolution than that of the French Revolution. In significant ways, the Polish king succeeded because he embraced the laws of nature and “the array of Justice” without forcing anything of his own will upon his people. [...]
Albéric Magnard’s music is a happy amalgam of all that was best in Wagner, Franck, and Debussy. The gentle, nostalgic, and somewhat melancholy reminiscence of the past is a key part of his aesthetic and a clear legacy of his Schola Cantorum training. Yet his music is also progressive, looking forward unmistakably to the [...]
In times of chaos, it’s profoundly necessary to remember those who have come before us and the innumerable sacrifices they made. Each of these great men, whatever his individual faults, sought to live according to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. They preserved, and they conserved. As a way of perceiving and a [...]
Sam Mendes’ appropriation of baptismal imagery allows the film “1917” to achieve the rare feat of portraying the First World War in terms of hope and rebirth rather than merely of pity and death. As we watch the protagonist Schofield’s journey, we recall that we have been buried and raised with Christ. I was [...]
It is only the loved and repeated repertoire that will ensure the survival of music, and to be loved and repeated music requires a dedicated audience. Music exists in the ear of the listener, not on the page of the score, nor in the world of pure sound effects. And listeners, deterred by the [...]
How does one find the obstinacy, the calm, the strength to glow with the Beautiful and the True in the midst of a raging storm? I think about a small argument in chapter 13 of the “Summa Contra Gentiles,” the work which, when my heart slows its hammering, gives my mind peace. I am [...]
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 [...]
Charles Martin Loeffler’s rise to eminence among composers worldwide signals an American cultural arrival at the turn of the 20th century. In a sense he was a bridge from the Old World to the New. Loeffler brought something unique to our culture, and his colorful and intimate music should not to be forgotten. There [...]