Tchaikovsky’s operas are remarkable for their passion, characters, and their pure, elevated humanity His music has the quality of touching something deep in one’s heart, revealing profound aspects of the human experience in a lofty and beautiful way that transcends time and barriers. Russian operas are not quite as well known as the operas of [...]
"The Gloucestershire Wassail" is a traditional English carol associated with the eve of Epiphany, when revelers drank wassail punch, a hot-mulled sherry- or brandy-based cider, sweetened with sugar and seasoned with other spices, and including yeast, apples, and toast. According to British Food History, "wassailing predates the Battle of Hastings and is thought to have [...]
The film "Maestro" is certainly well-made and well-acted, with Bradley Cooper (who also directed) carrying off a spot-on impersonation of Leonard Bernstein. But at its core is an emptiness that no mere artifice can fill. Writers for the movies, I have found, don’t seem to know how to deal with the arts as a dramatic [...]
"Good King Wenceslas" is a Christmas carol that tells a story of a Bohemian king going on a journey and braving harsh winter weather to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen (December 26, the Second Day of Christmas). During the journey, his page is about to give up the struggle [...]
“O Holy Night” is a carol with a purity, beauty and a timeless message I dearly love. What I’ve always thought of as a humble yet glorious, affecting Christmas carol, turns out to have a vaguely spicy story behind it. Confession: I stopped writing this essay on “O Holy Night,” soured by something I couldn’t [...]
Why, one wonders, would readers of The Imaginative Conservative be interested in hearing of my enjoyment of music videos designed for very young children? The answer is that the Wiggles offer children (of all ages) entertainment that is both imaginative and conservative. I have a confession to make. For almost twenty years I’ve been a [...]
On December 22, 1808, Ludwig van Beethoven—by then an established composer and a renowned piano virtuoso—conducted a concert of his own works, featuring himself also as pianist, at the Theater an der Wien in Vienna. The program included the premiers of Beethoven's Fifth and Sixth symphonies, his Fourth Piano Concerto, and a concluding piece for [...]
What would the Christmas season be without Sleigh Ride, the beloved orchestral chestnut by Leroy Anderson? It’s one of those festive selections endlessly piped into our ears on radio, television, and in every public marketplace, to the point of becoming a sort of seasonal wallpaper—something taken for granted. But if Sleigh Ride is a tune [...]
We think of Beethoven as the stormy rebel, the musical Zeus hurling his thunderbolts. But there exists also Beethoven's Apollonian side. His music can indeed be so elegant, so meltingly tender or nostalgic. So much of what Beethoven composed projects a pastoral peace and contentment, evoking the walks in the country he so enjoyed. Musical [...]
Shortly after the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941, Sammy Kaye and Don Reid wrote the music and Reid wrote the words to "Remember Pearl Harbor." On December 17, 1941, RCA Victor recorded the song, with Sammy Kaye's Swing and Sway Band and The Glee Club.* History in ev'ry century records an act that lives [...]
French composer Guy Ropartz wrote Le Miracle de Saint Nicolas in 1905, based on a text by René Avril. From the Naxos recording of this work: This legend in sixteen scenes introduces the story, familiar to the people of Lorraine, of St Nicholas bringing back to life the three boys murdered and pickled by the [...]
When Wolfgang Mozart died on December 5, 1791, fellow composer Joseph Haydn was "quite beside [himself] over his death," and the older composer soon paid a veiled tribute to his young friend in the form of a sombre slow movement of a new symphony he was writing for his London tour. "I love him too [...]
The music of the Western classical tradition is known for its dynamism, drama, and rhythmic and intellectual energy. While I value these qualities as much as anybody, more and more these days I find myself gravitating toward music that is contemplative and serene rather than active and developmental—music that makes us content being where we [...]
Tchaikovsky's First Symphony is a delight: fresh, assured and just plain fun to listen to. The violins introduce the first movement with a shimmering, sweet tremolo, giving it a dreamy, gossamer texture, that perfectly illustrates the movement’s subtitle, “Daydreams of a Winter Journey." While a longtime fan of Tchaikovsky, I must confess that, up to a [...]