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Dec 6, 2024 | 
newcriterion.com | James Nuechterlein |Emily Smith |Douglas Murray |Pat Rogers
Recent stories of note:“Lines of Insight”Stephen Smith, Literary ReviewPiet Mondrian is known, of course, for his red, yellow, and blue. And after he made the switch from Post-Impressionism to De Stijl, he apparently stuck to his guns: during the Blitz, when friends told him to flee London and head to the country, he replied, “It is too green.” A new biography tells the story of the idiosyncratic artist whose life, unlike Van Gogh or Caravaggio, has yet to capture the public imagination.
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Nov 22, 2024 | 
newcriterion.com | Vasily Rudich |Hilton Kramer |Douglas Murray |Paul Tucker
Recent stories of note:“How Professors Killed Literature”Reinaldo Laddaga, CompactLast month, the internet was atwitter over a headline in The Atlantic: “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books.” To explain the growing phenomenon of Ivy League students who are apparently unable to read a book in its entirety, the piece pointed to changing K–12 English curricula—especially those meant to bolster standardized-testing performance—as one cause.
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Nov 15, 2024 | 
newcriterion.com | Douglas Murray |James Piereson |Theodore Dalrymple |Larry P. Arnn
Recent stories of note:“Remembering Frank Auerbach, one of the leading artists of his generation, who has died aged 93”Matthew Holman, The Art Newspaper“One of the many mysteries of art is how the Muse picks the most disparate people,” said the German British painter Frank Auerbach in an interview earlier this year. He cited the “hunchback dwarf” Alexander Pope and the “illiterate farm laborer” John Clare, but the muse seems to have singled out Auerbach, too.
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Nov 14, 2024 | 
barnesandnoble.com | Douglas Murray
The New York Times bestselling author of The War on the West explains how no less than the future of the Western World is at stake in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Douglas Murray, #1 international bestselling author and renowned cultural commentator, confronts arguably the most pressing question of our time: Why are Western supporters of Palestine unwittingly aligning with an evil empire? The campus left frames the violent hostilities as white colonialists committing genocide.
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Nov 1, 2024 | 
newcriterion.com | Douglas Murray |James Piereson |Hilton Kramer |Suzanna Murawski
Recent stories of note:“Hear a Chopin Waltz Unearthed After Nearly 200 Years”Javier C. Hernández, The New York TimesFrédéric Chopin died 175 years ago, so it’s not too often that his fans get to hear something new from him.
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Oct 31, 2024 | 
newcriterion.com | Douglas Murray |James Piereson |Gary Saul Morson |Paul du Quenoy
The key of E-flat major often introduces bold music. As the National Symphony’s music director Gianandrea Noseda observed at this early-season concert, both pieces featured that evening—Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5, Op. 73, nicknamed “Emperor” in English-speaking countries, and Richard Strauss’s Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life), the composer’s last and most demanding tone poem before he turned to opera—are written in the majestic key.
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Oct 30, 2024 | 
newcriterion.com | Douglas Murray |James Piereson |Theodore Dalrymple |Larry P. Arnn
Teatro alla Scala, Italy’s premier opera house, includes an opera from the country’s pre-Mozart past in its programming each year. This time, the choice fell on L’Orontea by the seventeenth-century composer Antonio Cesti.
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Oct 24, 2024 | 
newcriterion.com | Douglas Murray |William Logan |Simon Heffer |Myron Magnet
FeaturesThe profundity of evilEmily Dickinson at the post officePevsner revised“The Power Broker” in perspectivePoemsReconsiderationsA lion in ZionTheaterMisshapen identitiesArtShapeshifting StellaYour donation sustains our efforts to inspire joyous rediscoveries. MusicNew York chronicleThe mediaIrony deficiencyBooksThe sun also setsSaxon semi-successesStrong convictionsMerci pour Magna CartaNotebook
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Oct 23, 2024 | 
newcriterion.com | Douglas Murray |James Piereson |Theodore Dalrymple |Larry P. Arnn
Mediocrity has a new name on Broadway and it’s McNeal (at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center through November 24), which marks the Main Stem debut of Robert Downey Jr., who in several recent years has been listed as the best-paid movie star on Earth.
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Aug 25, 2023 | 
telegraph.co.uk | Douglas Murray
What are the most damaging claims you can make about someone in our society? The ones that would truly damage – if not ruin – the reputation of anyone they were levelled against. There is “murderer”, I suppose. “Paedophile”, definitely. And then there is “racist”. All are highly reputationally destructive, especially if asserted repeatedly. But notice that there is a difference between these charges. The first two can be fought in a court and can be easily disproved if they are wrong.
