John Derbyshire

1 month ago | newcriterion.com | John Byron Kuhner |Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn |Daniel Mendelsohn |John Derbyshire

In 1970, the Procurator General of the Discalced Carmelite Order, Finian Monahan, was summoned to the Vatican for a meeting. The subject of the meeting was a promising young American priest by the name of Reginald Foster. The head Latinist of the Vatican’s State Department had tapped Foster to write papal correspondence, which was at the time composed entirely in Latin. Foster wanted the job but was bound by a vow of obedience, and the decision would be made by his superiors.

1 month ago | newcriterion.com | John Derbyshire |Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn |Victor Davis Hanson |James Penrose

Recent stories of note: “‘Edgar Allan Poe’ Review: The Soul Within the Shadow” Meghan Cox Gurdon, The Wall Street Journal Few American poems are so recognizable to the public as Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.” (Frost’s “The Road Not Taken” is the other top contender.) And Poe’s dark short stories are nearly as well-known: think “The Tell-Tale Heart” or “The Cask of Amontillado.” Like Poe’s most famous works, his life was grim—plagued by alcoholism and riddled with lost loves—and brief, with...

1 month ago | newcriterion.com | John Derbyshire |Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn |Victor Davis Hanson |James Penrose

Our popular arts do not easily express faith. This is not only because of what artists choose as a subject but also the manner they adopt, and it isn’t a uniquely contemporary problem. When the nineteenth-century art critic John Ruskin stated that a “noble style” would apply to both house and church, he protested the British tendency to reserve the Gothic for their cathedrals and chapels.

1 month ago | newcriterion.com | John Byron Kuhner |John Derbyshire |Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn |Victor Davis Hanson

One after another, orchestras are visiting Carnegie Hall, to play two or three concerts. The Cleveland Orchestra is there now, for two concerts. Tonight’s is the second. Last night’s began with Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Do you remember what Robert Graves said? “The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good—in spite of all the people who say he is very good.” Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is almost a cartoon.

1 month ago | newcriterion.com | John Derbyshire |Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn |Victor Davis Hanson |James Penrose

Alicia de Larrocha, the late Spanish pianist, introduced the world to a great deal of Spanish music. Not just music by relatively established composers, such as Albéniz, Granados, Falla, and Turina, but also the music of the less well established: Federico Mompou, Ernesto Halffter, Óscar Esplá, et al. We had Spanish singers too, spreading Spanish songs around the world. I think of three sopranos, in particular: Victoria de los Ángeles, Montserrat Caballé, and Pilar Lorengar.