Every time I hear the music of Beethoven, the spirit of Christmas touches my heart. Because Beethoven is bound up with love, Beethoven is bound up with Christ. During Advent, Christians everywhere are reminded of the great testament of Love becoming incarnate. Beethoven keeps pointing us to that reality. Ludwig van Beethoven was born in [...]
Hector Berlioz relished the spectacular sounds that could be achieved with massive orchestral forces, but he was much more than a musical showman. His gift for melody, his mastery of orchestration, his genius for musical drama, his bold originality, and the uniqueness of his style place him in the front ranks of the great composers. [...]
César Franck is one of those 19th-century composers who deserves to be much better known. I’ve been listening to his extraordinary Symphony in D minor for more than 20 years and knew I loved it, but I couldn’t tell you why until my recent research on him and his music. Many of us have been in [...]
Classical music should not be an arcane special interest but an art form of universal and humane concern. Classical music provides a central cultural focus as do the classics of literature and art, and like those fields, ought to have a touchstone, an enduring norm and standard, and a repertoire of works which everyone should [...]
This essay is for my friend Grace. It is the visit I can’t give her. Once she’s weakened further, I hope music can take over as a conduit for her, to all that is beautiful in life. And since we both connect with, and through, classical music, this is my parting gift to her: Ten [...]
The important thing to remember, if you are sorting through the rich world of classical music, is that style periods are much less real than the music they describe. The job of labels should be to give us some orientation in our listening, but ultimately the music must stand on its own. When I think [...]
Throughout his work, Samuel Adler shows himself a composer unafraid to engage with the deepest spiritual questions. His ecumenicism is based on a commitment to truth, to humanity, and to the word of God, and his music is based on perennial aesthetic values of clarity and beauty. For that reason, his music speaks to our [...]
Ludwig van Beethoven's Variations on "God save the King" and Variations on "Rule Britannia" for piano were published in 1803. Pianist Angela Hewitt remarks: Concerning the 7 Variations on ‘God save the King’, WoO78, Beethoven made the comment that he wanted to ‘show the English what a blessing they have’ with that tune.... It makes [...]
What is it, in and about music, that gives one an experience so outside of oneself that one can see reality anew, as if newborn in a strange but wonderful world? [In] sound itself, there is a readiness to be ordered by the spirit and this is seen at its most sublime in music. —Max [...]
At its best, Aaron Copland’s Americana style is one of the great, ingenious, and enduring achievements in music. Its greatness is not diminished by its widespread imitation by lesser talents in movies, television shows, and commercials, where it has served as a ready way to evoke the Far West, small-town life, or other phases of [...]
It may be the greatest challenge facing those who love classical music in our modern age is the one facing those who do not also love Beauty. Those who reject the idea of Beauty, who deny its value, or who relegate it to meaninglessness—as in fact so many of today’s most vocal proponents of classical music [...]
Katherine Lee Bates’ “America the Beautiful” conveys the incalculable beauty of virtue that America can exhibit by exercising self-control and taking on the high responsibilities of self-rule. Our prayer is that the anomalies of this year do not overcome us, and that our nation will recall itself and find again the greatness of soul that [...]
Back in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, a superstition developed in the classical music world that prophesied the Ninth would be a composer’s last symphony. Arnold Schoenberg summed it up in an eloquent fashion, stating that “he who wants to go beyond it must pass away. It seems as if something might be imparted to us [...]
The development of mechanical reproduction and transmission at the dawn of the 20th century changed how we experience music. It remains true that technology has allowed us to extend, amplify, and disseminate the experience of art. This is, in itself, a good thing. The question is how we use this gift. In the past, when [...]