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Arne Nordheim was the most celebrated Norwegian composer of the 20th century. He is known for both his avant-garde electronic works and his large-scale orchestral works and music dramas. Nordheim’s Draumkvedet (“The Dream Ballad”), a music drama based on the medieval Norse poem of the same name, fuses his modernist idiom with folk influences to great effect. (more…)
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Krzysztof Penderecki, who died on March 29, 2020, was one of the most prolific and creative composers of the past century. His works include four operas, eight symphonies plus other orchestral works, about a dozen concertos, vocal and choral works, and chamber and solo instrumental works. (more…)
Wilhelm von Kaulbach, The Fifth Adventure, 1848
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A manuscript containing Hitler’s ideas for an opera entitled Wieland der Schmied, inspired by Wagner’s draft for a libretto of the same name, was recently put on display for the first time at the Museum Niederösterreich. The museum is currently running an exhibit on Hitler’s early life featuring artifacts collected by August Kubizek between 1907 and 1920. (more…)
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Richard Weaver
The Ethics of Rhetoric
Muriwai Books, 2017 (1953).
The great task that lies ahead of us is to persuade our people of the rightness of our ideas. It behooves us, then, to study the art of rhetoric, or persuasion. Richard Weaver’s The Ethics of Rhetoric is a rigorous and intelligent introduction to this vanishing art. (more…)
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Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite swept the Oscars ceremony this year, winning the awards for Best Picture (the first foreign-language film to earn the award), Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film. It has been hailed as the best film of 2019 and currently enjoys a 99% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Like the similarly over-hyped Knives Out, Parasite is a technically competent but underwhelming film whose vapid social commentary has secured its popularity with liberal critics. (more…)
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Library of Congress Reading Room
Earlier this month, the Architectural Record obtained a draft copy of an executive order that, if implemented, would have a significant impact on federal architecture. Titled “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again,” the order states that “the classical architectural style shall be the preferred and default style” (more…)
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Knives Out, Rian Johnson’s much-hyped addition to the mystery genre, is a forgettable, self-indulgent film whose flashes of competence are incapable of redeeming its trite plot, pathetically unfunny script, and aggressive commitment to political correctness.
The film has all the trappings of a classic murder mystery in the style of Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers. A wealthy patriarch, Harlan Thrombey (Christopher Plummer, in remarkably good form at 90) is found dead in his mansion after celebrating his 85th birthday (more…)
N. C. Wyeth
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Newell Convers Wyeth, or N. C. Wyeth, was one of America’s greatest artists and illustrators. Over the course of his lifetime, he created over 3,000 paintings and illustrated over 100 books, including several Scribner Classics. His son, Andrew Wyeth, and grandson, Jamie Wyeth, also became prominent artists.
Wyeth was born in 1882 and grew up on a farm in Needham, Massachusetts. His childhood was an active one, and he often went hunting and fishing with his brothers. (more…)
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Set on the battlefields of northern France during the First World War, Sam Mendes’ 1917 follows two lance corporals racing against the clock to deliver a message to a certain colonel ordering him to call off an attack that would result in British defeat. Like Peter Jackson’s 2018 documentary They Shall Not Grow Old, which features colorized footage of the war and audio interviews of former soldiers, it seeks to capture the human side of the war and the everyday realities of a soldier’s life. (more…)
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Ford v Ferrari depicts the rivalry between Ford and Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1966, and follows Ford’s quest to build a car that would break Ferrari’s winning streak. Ford tasks automotive designer Carroll Shelby (Matt Damon) with the challenge of refining the Ford GT40. Shelby is joined by Ken Miles (Christian Bale), a British driver and engineer who also collaborated with him on the Daytona Coupe and the Shelby Cobra 289.
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Director Alexandre O. Philippe has followed up his 2017 documentary on the shower scene in Psycho (78/52: Hitchcock’s Shower Scene) with Memory: The Origins of Alien, a documentary on the creation of Alien that attempts to chart the film’s wide-ranging influences and explore its mythic resonance. The result is an underwhelming muddle that lacks direction and often retreads old ground, particularly in an overlong segment on the chestburster scene. (more…)
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Today is the first day of Banned Books Week, an annual event that purports to celebrate intellectual freedom and First Amendment rights by drawing attention to books that have been banned or challenged. Its organizers claim to be staunch opponents of censorship of all kinds. (more…)