This is the first part in a twelve part devotional commentary on “O Holy Night.” See the introduction here.O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,It is the night of Our dear Saviour’s birth.The first two lines of the song provide a context for what’s to follow. . . . . Continue Reading »
Today I kicked off a devotional commentary series through the song “O Holy Night” over at The A-Team Blog. I’m not sure if it really fits with Evangel or not, but I’ll cross-post the first few entries here to see how it goes.“O Holy Night” is one of those . . . . Continue Reading »
The other day we visited Saint John the Baptist in Tryon, North Carolina, where renovations gallop apace. Here, today, you may tour — not for the sake of comparison; as we all know, comparisons are odious — my own parish church, inside and out. Now, I love it, but as you can see, this is . . . . Continue Reading »
It’s hard to know what to say about tambourines. On the one hand, they’re great for festive medieval music: “Gaudete! Gaudete! Christus est natus!” and so on. On the other hand, they’re so often not used for festive medieval music, and I think I’ll just leave it . . . . Continue Reading »
From the Church Music Association of America: Gregorian Chant at the National Shrine, Washington, DC, September 25-26, 2009.Chant is good. I imagine this pilgrimage will be all right, too, though it’s hard to consider it perfect when it hasn’t even happened yet.[Rating: 97 out of . . . . Continue Reading »
My friend Michael Linton just sent me this video clip of his lovely “Third Marian Carol,” and with the mercury climbing outside, and my little kids fighting over whose turn it is to hurl him- or herself headlong down the Slip’N’Slide, I thought I’d share it with all of . . . . Continue Reading »
Whoo. Let’s see what we’ve got going on tonight. Oh, oh, oh. Check it out. Easter’s over, baby, but you can beat the rush. I know about being forgiven, but won’t wearing a t-shirt that says so make people want to ask you what you did? In my town it would. “Whu’d . . . . Continue Reading »
I’m not a musician in any real sense of the word, only an enthusiast. In good choirs I’ve sung in, my contributions have been limited to reasonably non-incompetent alto-line filler, for pieces like Mendelssohn’s Richte mich Gott. That’s one kind of good choir: the choir which . . . . Continue Reading »
Doesn’t anybody play air guitar any more? Dude, you say. Air guitar? You mean, like, just . . . listening to some loud music and . . . pretending? Yeah, see, back in the day, what you would do was, you would put on a record in your room. A record. It’s a big round thing that comes in a . . . . Continue Reading »
If the New York Times shuts down, at least I won’t have to respond to mind-numbing items like David Brooks’ April 30 peroration, “Genius: the modern view.” Aldous Huxley’s wife Laura infamously said that her husband looked like a stupid man’s idea of what a clever . . . . Continue Reading »
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