As Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen turns 70 years old, one finds it a daunting task to make an exhaustive list of his artistic accomplishments and the accolades he has received for them: Mr. Springsteen, who has been performing live for more than a half-century now, is the 15th highest-selling artist of all-time; his first album, [...]
From his first experience of "Hamlet" in 1827 to his death in 1869, Hector Berlioz found William Shakespeare's plays to be an ongoing source of almost-divine inspiration for his music. Indeed, Berlioz's love for "the father of artists" led to the creation of what many consider to be his greatest work: the dramatic symphony, "Roméo [...]
The old men who narrate the songs of Bruce Springsteen's cinematic "Western Stars" are broken, physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Seeking a land of sunshine, open roads, and new beginnings, they find that the fabled American West cannot provide salvation for the lost and lonely. But "Western Stars" will surely provide balm for the soul. Western Stars, [...]
"I consider this to be one of my best works," Hector Berlioz wrote of "The Damnation of Faust." Though the piece's spirit is one of unrelenting melancholy, it features much musical diversity and is kaleidoscopic, even cinematic, in its vision. The listener here again recognizes the stunning modernism of Berlioz and finds himself immersed in [...]
In his two-volume Berlioz and the Romantic Century, historian Jacques Barzun argued that the much-maligned and misunderstood composer was in fact the dominant cultural figure of his day, “who by will and genius stamped his effigy upon the nineteenth century” and brought “kings, ministers, and public institutions, no less than poets and musicians, under his spell.” Publisher's Note: This essay [...]
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 genius for musical drama, his mastery of orchestration, and his bold originality place him in the front rank of the great composers. He has the unfortunate reputation [...]
The organ is typically associated with bland church music, less favorite arrangements of Christmas carols, and haunted houses. But Mozart himself called it "the king of instruments," and if the daring listener wishes to venture into solo organ music for the first time, then R. J. Stove’s "The Gates of Vienna" is an ideal starting point. The Gates [...]
Many believe that objectivity is the historian’s goal. But Forrest McDonald believed that history by its very nature entails artifice; the historian is not simply a mere recorder or reporter of events, but also an artist. “History is marble, and remains forever cold, even under the most artistic hand, unless life is breathed into it [...]
“They say you won’t succeed because ‘making a man President cannot change him,'” Julia Sand wrote. “But making a man President can change him! If there is a spark of true nobility in you, now is the occasion to let it shine.” On September 22, 1881, Chester Alan Arthur was sworn in as the twenty-first President [...]
In an age of cynicism and selfishness, Mike Rowe's "Returning the Favor" is an unabashedly feel-good show, telling the story of the many unsung, little, local platoons that comprise the heart of our communities and that quietly give the lie to the idea that only the omnipotent State can take care of us. Edmund Burke [...]
To those Americans who revere him—sadly, a dwindling number these days—Robert E. Lee is still much a "Marble Man": the noble face of the antebellum South, the tragic embodiment of the Lost Cause, the "perfect" man, as a contemporary deemed him. Even his admirers are unaware of the some of the more interesting details of [...]
Did Beethoven steal tunes from his older contemporary for the "Eroica" Symphony, the Ninth Symphony, and for his most popular and beautiful song? "This entire passage has been stolen from the Mozart symphony in C." —written by Beethoven on one of his own musical sketches It is one of the most popular tunes in all [...]
Here are four recently-published books and four new classical music albums that I have greatly enjoyed this past year… Books I’ve read several excellent biographies (and one great autobiography) this past year. Foremost among the former is Jan Swafford’s magisterial Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph, which could easily be termed the definitive biography of perhaps the greatest [...]
Though his fans will undoubtedly enjoy this engrossing autobiography, it deserves a broader audience because of the beauty of Mr. Springsteen's writing, his penetrating observations about human nature, and his well-crafted history of an interesting and important life. "We remain in the air, the empty space, in the dusty, roots and deep earth, in the [...]