Category Archives: Republic of Letters

Music, Philosophy, Republic of Letters

Jacques Barzun and Hector Berlioz ~ The Imaginative Conservative

Even Berlioz’s own countrymen have been loathe to champion him as one of their own, perhaps because his music is not conventionally “French,” but cosmopolitan in both its style and content. Claude Debussy famously called his compatriot a “monster.” Berlioz, it is true, drew inspiration for his dramatic works—his symphonies and operas—not from French sources, but from Goethe, Byron, Virgil, and Shakespeare. His seeming betrayal of his inheritance of French culture provided the background for a debate in the early 2000s, as the bicentenary of his birth loomed, about whether the composer’s remains should be moved to the Pantheon in Paris, the burial site of many of France’s cultural heroes. (President Jacques Chirac decided that they should not.)
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/02/jacques-barzun-hector-berlioz-stephen-klugewicz.html

Republic of Letters

Surprised by Jack ~ The Imaginative Conservative

Other than his arrival at Christianity in the autumn of 1931, nothing affected Lewis more in his scholarly and personal life than his discovery of the northern gods. They would help form the basis of his friendship with J.R.R. Tolkien as well as his own personal imagination, including its boundaries and limitations. Given that Lewis and Ray Bradbury were the two men who most gave respectability to the genre of science fiction in the twentieth century, his encounter with the northern is no small moment. Still, this was only a step toward his acceptance of Christianity, and that would have to wait almost two more decades
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/02/surprised-jack-bradley-birzer.html

Faith, Music, Philosophy, Republic of Letters

Mark Hollis, Rest Your Head ~ The Imaginative Conservative

Despite the gravitas of the music and the lyrics, The Colour of Spring sold well enough that EMI gave Hollis and Friese-Greene free reign on the fourth album, Spirit of Eden. Along with famed audio engineer, Phill Brown, the two men went fully mystical. Renting an abandoned church for fourteen months, Talk Talk did everything possible to create timelessness in the sacred space. Relying on the lighting of the stained glass and lava lamps, the band spent over a year trying to capture specific sounds, piecing them together as a whole. Side one of the album became one eighteen minute track, begging the Lord to rage against injustice. Over its nearly twenty-minute length, the song moves from the sound of sea scapes to an utterly cacophonous passion, finally resolving with a recognition that a man is inherently flawed and, thus, unable to perfect all things. The album concludes with “Wealth,” a lyrical rewrite of the famous prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/02/mark-hollis-rest-your-head-bradley-birzer.html

Republic of Letters

Talk Talk’s Mark Hollis has reportedly died, aged 64

Mark Hollis of the band Talk Talk has reportedly died, aged 64. He was one of the driving forces behind the band in their early stages
— Read on www.nme.com/news/music/mark-hollis-talk-talk-reportedly-died-aged-64-2453863

One of my greatest heroes has passed from this world. May God bless and welcome a faithful artist.

Republic of Letters

On Loving Research ~ The Imaginative Conservative

Research, I see now, was a way for me to explore without limits of environment, without considerations for weather, and without borders. Additionally, my mind needed something that demanded lots and lots of attention. I suppose even at age eleven, I had more than a bit of OCD as well as a perfectionist streak. Add in that domestic life was, more often than not, horrific on the home-front, I was eager to escape—whether to Carey Park or to the public library.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/02/on-loving-research-bradley-birzer.html