Somehow Schubert–without my seeking–always finds me in the autumn. This year I came upon an animation of what is probably the composer...

    I had the opportunity this week to revisit the first version of Don Giovanni I ever saw, Joseph Losey's 1979 filmed production, wi...

Authentic Sound  is a delightful channel run by Belgian musician Wim Winters. Besides his marvelous playing he discusses musicology, history...

Looney Tunes probably comes first to mind when people think of classical music used in cartoons, and with good reason, but the U.S. Acres ...

Vienna, 1802. Ludwig van Beethoven takes a stroll through in country outside the city. The birds are singing as a soft, wispy cloud moment...

The incorporation of folk forms of expression into works of higher art is an old tradition in Western music, and we find some of that tradi...

The end of The Mikado has, for my money, the jauntiest rhythm and wittiest rhyming in Gilbert and Sullivan. My favorite bit is the duet ...

from Reflections on the Spirituality of Gregorian Chant . Translated by Dom Gregory Casprini and Robert Edmonson. p. 35f Unction is de...

I came across the late Uwe Scholz's ballet to Mozart's C minor mass on the Classic Arts Showcase a couple of years ago. (I miss the...

The art of celebration is one part tradition, one part separation from the utilitarian world of daily life, and one part gratitude. The th...

For their 2015 Halloween episode, Jeopardy   featured a category of opera-inspired clues with Alex Trebek donning authentic Metropolitan O...

Toward the end of the holiday classic Meet Me in St. Louis , the Smith family is set to celebrate their last Christmas at home before movin...

Surprised the psychedelic vibe of Bachstock appealed to me? I am. The idea of naming a celebration of Bach's corpus of work–the apog...

Since the Archdiocese of New York's parish consolidation initiative spurred speculation about the closing of Holy Innocents , much ha...

Directed by Robert Wise. 1965. I had never seen The Sound of Music but I entertained a passing and unfriendly familiarity with a number...

Directed by Clint Eastwood. 2014. Every genre has a natural shape, and it doesn't do the critic or audience any good to beat a movie...

Perhaps no television program is better remembered for silly, cheesy gags than Gilligan's Island . Yes, there's appeal in its warm ...

Moral philosophers are eager to suggest every which way we might become good people, but they seldom seem to get around to telling you what...

Holy  is one of my least favorite words in our beloved English tongue. To start, the word has an undignified ring, for both wholly and holy...