Support First Things by turning your adblocker off or by making a  donation. Thanks!
MENU
Donate to First Things

  1. Music

Bach and Pythagoras

Anyone who begins playing Bach as an adult will notice two things: that he should have started earlier, ideally by studying the piano as a child instead of chasing a leathery orb around some field; and that there is something of the divine in Bach. Philosophers have always drawn a connection between . . . . Continue Reading »

Briefly Noted

Fujimura’s Art and Faith meditates on the necessity of art for spiritual flourishing. Pulling from a myriad of resources, Fujimura illustrates how artistic ­creation allows us to model ourselves after God, the first and greatest creator and artist, who­ created the world ex . . . . Continue Reading »

Music That Is Never Heard

One of the most haunting images I know of comes from the last days of James ­Simon, a German Jewish composer who perished at Auschwitz. Having survived ­Theresienstadt, he and others were sent off to their final destination. Witnesses say that the last time they saw him, Simon was waiting for the . . . . Continue Reading »

Briefly Noted

Pepperdine professor Paul J. Contino is a well-known and well-regarded scholar and teacher of Christianity and literature, and he proves himself an engaging and insightful guide to The Brothers Karamazov with this new study. “I began work on this book over thirty years ago,” he notes. . . . . Continue Reading »

Letters

One of the most fascinating details of Mary Eberstadt’s “The Fury of the Fatherless” (December) is the observation that the BLM movement has a Marxist vision of the family: “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families . . . . Continue Reading »

Featured Authors

    Filter Tag Articles

    2024 First Things. All rights reserved.
    View our privacy policy here.
    212.627.1985 ft@firstthings.com