Two hundred fifty years ago, on February 26, 1770, “following a gangrene that developed in one foot,” the one who at the end of his career was called the “first violin-player in Europe” and “master of the nations” died in Padua (P. Petrobelli, Giuseppe Tartini — Le fonti biografiche, Universal Edition 1968, p. 13-14): Italian…
If he lived today, would Mozart have composed a cantata like Davide penitente (The Penitent David), K. 469? Performed successfully for the first time on March 13, 1785 in Vienna’s Burgtheater, it was soon forgotten. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) was asked by the Vienna Musicians’ Society (Wiener Tonkünstler-Societät), a pension fund founded in 1771 to…
A theological dispute between Catholic and Protestant students in a tavern in Wittenberg? It happens in the second scene of the German opera Doktor Faust by Ferruccio Busoni (1866–1924), complex figure of German-Italian musician, pianist, composer, and writer, “the most extraordinary performer that piano literature has had” (G. Cattaneo, Esperienze intellettuali del primo Novecento, Mondadori…
On January 30, with the first assembly in Frankfurt, the “Synodal Path” of the German Catholic Church reform begins — a “journey” without the observance of canonical regulations that a real synod would require. During the next two years, the 230 members, including 69 bishops and 69 lay persons (progressive) of the Central Committee of…
In this Christmas season we are invited to worship the Divine Word, the invisible Second Person of the Holy Trinity, who is made visible. “He has come to lift up all things to himself, to restore unity to creation” (Preface of Christmas II). The idea of “Christ as Jesus of Nazareth, man, not God incarnate”…
I really like some of Elton John’s music. I remember listening to his album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road when I was about eight years old. I remember being amazed at the fact that it was almost as good as the Beatles albums my older siblings played. Even though I have never been fond of the…
In these times of “politically correct” religious and moral bewilderment, in which Christmas carols are purged of Christian references, when they are not replaced with other songs, times in which Nativity scenes are rejected in the name of a misunderstood religious neutrality and a misrepresented secularity, the call, found in the pope’s recent apostolic letter…
“Tota pulchra es, Maria” is the cry of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary — a cry that rises towards the All Beautiful One, in which the splendor of God’s glory shines. They are words of ancient Franciscan origin, which are found even today in the antiphons sung, or read,…
Already the first great jewel threaded onto the strands of the new liturgical year is upon us: the glorious Feast of the Immaculate Conception. This year, December 8 falls on a Sunday. Yet this feast is so important that it supersedes the Mass of the Second Sunday of Advent in the traditional calendar. Dom Prosper…
In the United States, the annual Thanksgiving day, celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November to thank God for the fields’ good harvest, is one of the most popular national holidays since 1620, when the “Pilgrim Fathers” landed at Plymouth Rock . As you reflect on this day, “in which it is a must to…
Positive trajectories and luminous developments are a rare commodity in our current ecclesial environment, despite this being part and parcel of the mission of the Church. Therefore, it was with a surprised enthusiasm that I greeted the news of the forthcoming broadcast of a TLM accompanied by Frank La Rocca’s Mass of the Americas on…
