Of all the music of the world, Western classical music is distinctive by virtue of its complexity, both technical and emotional, and for projecting a compelling sense of drama and narrative. In it we hear nothing less than the human soul reflected through the medium of sound. When thinking or writing about Western classical music, [...]
In our own age, threatened by plague, economic uncertainty, barbarism, religious wars and corruption, the quiet optimism and faith of Julian of Norwich are a sweet tonic which brings re-assurance, hope, and a quiet confidence. In the English city of Norwich there are two Gothic cathedrals: one medieval and Anglican, the other neo-Gothic and Catholic. [...]
At the heart of "Gran Torino" is the portrayal of a good man. Too often good characters are simpering or squeaky clean; if not flawless their flaws are superficial traits plastered on top by a mediocre filmmaker. But Clint Eastwood’s Walt Kowalski comes across as authentic because of all the faults our society recognizes in [...]
We did not discard most of the image of reality from the Middle Ages. The lovely whole image was smashed like stained glass under the hammer of zealots, but later people recovered fragments and used them to create the world in which we live. C.S. Lewis wrote a book of profound scholarship, The Discarded Image, [...]
Alban Berg's Wozzeck (first premiered in 1925) tells the story of a man who is slowly breaking due to insanity. Let us draw our attention to Act III Scene IV of the opera. In this late scene, extreme musical conventions accelerate the story and seem to lead the deranged titular character to his death. The [...]
Classical music must find its place in love—love of home, of community, of neighbor, and of the culture that binds all these things together. In all but the most exceptional cases, our orchestras won’t survive if they don’t get this part right. Editor’s Note: This essay was presented as the opening address at the Future [...]
On June 1-3, 2023, the Academy of Philosophy and Letters, a group of conservative intellectuals, concerned citizens, and traditionalist think tankers, will gather in College Park, Maryland, just outside our nation’s capital, to discuss the urgent need to rebuild our social institutions. […]
Architecture, even in the case of airports, should uplift and inspire the soul to consider higher and wider panoramas. By their logic and beauty, buildings should speak to us of God, the source of all beauty. I lament that so many new buildings seem designed to limit horizons to the purely material, functional, and superficial. [...]
In a world where love is replaced with lust, the number of damsels in distress will increase. In such a world, we need to rescue our maidens from the dragons of the culture of death. In The Hobbit, Thorin Oakenshield gives Bilbo Baggins a beginner’s lesson on the nature of dragons, a sort of dragons for [...]
The Medieval Church culturally unified Christendom through a common language, Latin, and a common liturgy, tying men together with other men of their own time, but also with the whole communion of saints. Petrarch, ca. 1350, first employed the term “Medieval” to argue that his time (ca. 1350) had advanced beyond the so-called “dark ages.” [...]
Shakespeare stands as a colossus who straddles the centuries. It is not merely that he has survived the test of time; it is that his plays, and the truth and morality contained within them, transcend time. He was not of an age, but for all time! —Ben Jonson on William Shakespeare These famous words of [...]
If empirical science itself does not lead to atheism, the approach to science that has been taken surely has. For modernity to give way to something better, we need to trust our reason in an expansive sense as a gift of God to know our own hearts and minds—and to know the whole of his [...]
The Modern Jazz Quartet rebelled against convention. To the extent that it was possible to do so, they came to live musically and socially in a world of their own making. That act of independence and creativity, at once defiant and healing, was the substance of their protest. I. One afternoon a few weeks ago, [...]
Jean-Féry Rebel’s revolutionary symphony “Les Élémens” still stands, nearly three centuries after its composition, as man’s supreme artistic attempt to imagine chaos and creation, and the beginning of time itself. The Ancient Greeks held three notions about the nature of the universe that held sway for centuries over Western scientific and religious thought. The first [...]