Composed in a matter of weeks in 1853, the Violin Concerto was Robert Schumann's last major work before the madness set in. The program at the San Francisco Symphony was billed as “Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 in A minor, with guest conductor Roberto Abbado.” Great, enjoyable stuff. But one glance at my playbill once I was seated gave [...]
Truly the violin is a product of all that is best in Western culture: the love of beauty, the cultivation of craftsmanship, studied discipline, and sublime spirituality. The violin has long had an honored place in the tradition of Western music. Like Western culture itself, it has traveled all around the world: for popularity and [...]
“Memoriae Tuae” Martis nec gladius, belli nec ignis impiger Vivum momentum unquam memoriae tuae consumet Nor Mars his sword nor war’s quick fire shall burn The living record of your memory* Patrick Doyle wrote "Memoriae Tuae" as part of his score for the animated film, Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero, a 2018 computer-animated adventure film [...]
Raffaella Maria Stroik, a 23-year-old ballerina, died tragically in November 2018, drowning in a lake in Missouri. This real-life tragedy has now been transformed or transfigured, as if by magic or miracle, into a beautiful fairytale ballet, inspired by Raffaella’s devout and fervent Catholic faith. Fairyland and perfection have a great deal in common. They [...]
Raffaella is a new fairytale ballet commissioned by the Stroik family, in memory of their daughter, Raffaella Stroik. Inspired by her life, this full-length ballet follows the lineage of classical ballets such as Giselle and The Sleeping Beauty and seeks to embody Raffaella’s motto, “Beauty will save the world.” The ballet will be premiered on Saturday, [...]
All the immortal myths, sagas, and fairytales we locate in the world of make-believe are retold in the Bible. Likewise with our school's recent production of "The Sound of Music," whose Cinderella story of the pure maid who hears a call from God echoes unconsciously into their lives in a classical Catholic academy. The [...]
To play music is to stop time, to transcend the entire workaday world we all live in and to enter another world, a world of spirit and emotion which is, perhaps, a foretaste of that other life beyond. The ability to make music has been one of the great blessings of my life. I have [...]
I didn’t know Brahms had written a serenade, much less two dazzling ones, when he was a younger composer. This is the Brahms that fascinates me right now: the winsome, delicate-looking, blue-eyed, golden-haired young adult, who left behind family to hit the road to tour musically and meet his destiny head-on. You know the phenomenon: [...]
The characters in Mozart’s “Figaro” are the furthest thing from mere archetypes. Instead, they are as real and as identifiable as the people around us today, for Mozart was interested in human nature itself, and not the ephemeral and artificial distinctions of class. “In my opinion, each number in Figaro is a miracle,” composer Johannes [...]
Mahler’s Second Symphony was an attempt to confront the shock of mortality, to bring both composer and audience face to face with their own triviality and inconsequence. At the same time, the fearful image of the cavernous void presented Mahler with an opportunity, not to find, but to create meaning amid an otherwise purposeless existence. [...]
Hymns are a major source of our imaginative conception of the Christian faith. A good hymn focuses our mind on a memorable cluster of images that illuminate doctrine, preparing us to celebrate the liturgy or providing a respite during it. While the great hymn writers have often taken scripture as their starting point, they have not [...]
"Golgotha" is one of those works, and Frank Martin is one of those composers, about whom you want to broadcast to the world their greatness, beauty, and importance. Writers of a conservative inclination are prone to issue blanket condemnations of the fine art produced in the 20th century. But this is a gross oversimplification. Much [...]
Though Handel's "Messiah" rightly reigns supreme as the king of music for Easter, there are many other seasonal masterpieces that deserve to be heard more often. Here are ten lesser-known classical works that brilliantly depict the dramatic events of Holy Week and Easter Sunday. 1. "Resurrexit" from the Messe Solennelle, by Hector Berlioz (1824) The [...]
In the “St. Matthew Passion,” Bach indulges his gypsy soul. It is as though Bach, in his broad and deep humanity, his capacity for feeling all kinds and degrees of sorrow and joy, was reaching out to all his fellow human beings, believers and non-believers alike, and impressing upon them what was for him the [...]