Franz Schubert’s music is the music of Paradise lost. It is the songful lament of the wanderer who has been banished, yet who must find the difficult way back through suffering and death. It is music of the journey in exile. In terms of his achievement there is only one other composer to whom Franz […]
Mozart was not like us. The question as to why Mozart died so young is always superseded by: How could he have existed at all? How could you ask more of a miracle?” In 1991, the bicentennial of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s death was the occasion for massive festivals and grand recording projects, as well as […]
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 […]
Image Credit: PxHere / Public Domain The Center Square [By Jon Styf] – At both the state and federal level, Tennessee politicians are pushing protections for musicians against artificial intelligence producing fake works from them. Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, Tennessee legislative leaders and both musicians and music industry representatives gathered to introduce Tennessee’s Ensuring Likeness […]
“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—there is striking imagery throughout, in both black-and-white and color—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 […]
Dolly Parton granted a terminally ill man a wish last week — one he never imagined would come true but that was delivered at just the right time. LeGrand Gold of Orem, Utah, has been battling cancer for two years, according to KSL-TV. Recently, he was told the disease was spreading and that he should […]
A Taylor Swift fan who died at one of the pop singer’s concerts in South America last month succumbed to heat exhaustion, according to a report. The death of a 23-year-old Brazilian named Ana Clara Benevides Machado grabbed headlines following a concert in Rio de Janeiro on Nov. 17. The young woman attended the show, […]
“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 […]
Hector Berlioz was a professed atheist, but could anything as tender and touching as “L’Enfance du Christ” have been written by a man who did not believe? And what of Berlioz’s closing line to the work: “Oh my soul, what remains for you to do but shatter your pride before so great a mystery?” The […]
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