One reason why Frédéric Chopin "is the overwhelming favorite composer for the piano": he loved the short works of J.S. Bach more than anyone else of his time.

My wife and I caught a wonderful benefit concert with Andrew Peterson, Eric Peters, and Concerning Lions last Saturday. I wish I could share some of it with you. I saw a couple video clips of the Chattanooga-based Concerning Lions on their site, I believe, and you should be able to catch songs from the other great musicians through The Rabbit Room and elsewhere on the inTerweb. I wanted to introduce myself to Mr. Peterson and shake his hand and if possible bless him in some way (Mr. Peters too, who looked like he could use a shot in the arm) but I didn't take the opportunity. I didn't want to talk about myself for 30 seconds, and what else would I talk about.

The concert was to raise money (and attention I suppose) for a very good counseling center in our city, Richmont Community Counseling Center, which is dedicated to helping those who cannot afford counseling from other sources. If you can't tell from the website, they do some great work. May the Lord continue to bless them and others through them.

Somebody put up the "He's Gonna Marry Me" video again. Enjoy it while you can.

Sissel and some guy singing Simon and Garfunkel's "Bridge Over Troubled Water."

That song always takes me back. I remember a night in college, when a friend was leaving because he'd flunked out (turned out in the end he had a learning disability). We took him out to our favorite haunt, Mitz & Bert's diner in Lake Mills, Iowa, where you could get a tremendous hamburger and a big plate of hot-enough-to-burn-your-mouth french fries, plus a chocolate malt, for $1.03 (I had to watch my dollars in those days, so I remember). Before we broke up for the night, somebody played this song on the juke box, and it was like a benediction.

That was some time after my high school graduation, which is on my mind because we're having a sort of informal class reunion this weekend, down in Kenyon. Every molecule in my body is screaming, "DANGER! STAY AWAY!!!!!!" but I guess I have to go, because I missed the last regularly scheduled reunion.

I've never understood why people invite me to things, or register disappointment when I fail to show up. Is it my unsmiling, expressionless face they miss? The way I sulk in the corners and avoid eye contact? My bitter, self-pitying jokes? Or my early exits with lame excuses?

No wonder I can't talk to people. They're strange.

This is a new song from Andrew Peterson, and I love it.

I was fairly pleased with my post yesterday, but it's left me depleted. I feel like I've said everything I have to say for the moment.

Also, I'm bummed because Hunter Baker, author of The End of Secularism (don't read it--it'll only give him a swelled head) is now getting mentioned on Adam Baldwin's twitter feed. Yes, that Adam Baldwin, the guy who plays Casey on "Chuck."

Have I mentioned that I hate Hunter Baker?

In closing, here's Sissel Kyrkjebø doing a little Grieg. "Solveig's Song" from "Peer Gynt." Comfort food for the soul.

From the cross uplifted high
Where the Savior deigns to die
What melodious sounds I hear
Bursting on my ravished ear
Love¹s redeeming work is done
Come and welcome, sinner, come.

Sprinkled now with blood the throne
Why beneath thy burdens groan
On my pierced body laid
Justice owns the ransom paid
Bow the knee and kiss the Son
Come and welcome, sinner, come.

Read more from this hymn by Thomas Haweis (1732-1820)

I don't know what church did this, but apparently it's in Texas, and this clip is pretty cool.


To our Jewish friends (we have at least one), greetings and best wishes.

Tip: Moe Lane at Red State, by way of Wizbang.

This is not the melody from Dvorak's Slavonic Dances that runs through my head so often, but it's worth sharing today.

For your St. Patrick's Day enjoyment, one of my favorite Irish songs, done by my favorite Irish group, the Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem.


I suspect I may have posted this clip before. I don't care. It's only once a year, and this song embodies one of my favorite aspects of Irish culture—the joyous hyperbole of Hibernian rhetoric. C.S. Lewis recalls in Surprised By Joy how his father (an Irishman, of course) used to launch into Ciceronian philippics denouncing the horrific misbehavior of his sons, to the point where sometimes they had to restrain themselves from laughing. One of my favorite stretches of my own writing was Father Aillil's curse against Erling's enemies, near the beginning of The Year of the Warrior. One of the reasons I enjoy inhabiting Aillil's skull is the opportunity to declaim on the large scale, unrestrained by reason or good taste.

Ireland has opened the world's first Leprechaun Museum. Judging from the story (which might, I'll grant, provide an incomplete description) it seems to be primarily an exercise in feeling very small, walking around among giant-sized furniture. If that's the idea, I'd say it misses the point of leprechauns entirely. Read the rest of this entry . . .

Speaking of enjoying music, and in honor of the upcoming St. Patrick's Day holiday, I offer one of my own favorite Irish songs, one considered quaint today, but which I find deeply moving, “Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms.”


The lyrics were written by the Irish poet Thomas Moore (1779-1852), who also wrote “The Minstrel Boy” and “The Last Rose of Summer.” I believe there's a story that Moore wrote it to reassure his wife, after she contracted a skin disease, but I don't put a lot of faith in such tales. Let me know if you have verification.

The idea of life-long love seems to me to have fallen on hard times in the 21st Century. Does anybody write love songs anymore (as opposed to sex songs) outside of Country music? (Not that Country doesn't count. I just find it remarkable that a large segment of popular music seems to be devoted to songs that aren't devoted—songs about booty calls and hotness.)

The clip above isn't exactly what I was looking for, but it's nice and the singer does both verses, with the words roughly right. I note that his last name is McLarsen. I wonder what the story behind that is. I know of a family named McCarlson, whose ancestor came to America and added a “Mc” to his name to a) differentiate himself from all the other Carlsons in a Norwegian town, and b) be more American. My own great-grandfather did something similar, but changed his last name altogether.

I heard Ken Myers talk to a guest about time and experience in what I believe was one of last year’s issues of the Mars Hill Audio Journal. He referred to the creation account in Genesis, saying that regardless of one’s interpretation of the days and events, we can’t deny that God took time to create everything. That must mean time has value, and the time it takes to do some things is good, even God-honoring. Music, for example, takes time to perform and enjoy. Solitude soaks in slowly over an afternoon. The love and loyalty of friends takes years to mature.

When we talk about an artwork, we often ask people who experienced it to summarize it for us. We ask them, or even ask ourselves, what the music or poetry or movie was about and what it meant. We ask what its point was. Sometimes understanding that point is a natural part of the work, but perhaps more often than not, summarizing an artwork down to its gist is impossible. To attempt to do so is to completely miss the value of the work.

Who asks for the point of Dvorak’s “New World” symphony? That’s ridiculous, because the music itself, all 40 minutes of it, is the point. Maybe a theme can be verbalized for it, but saying it’s about the wild beauty of America doesn’t capture anything of the music. This goes for good poetry too. A poem may be about the pain of betrayal or the wonder of a bird in flight, but if someone were to ask us for the gist of the poem, our best answer may be to encourage them to read it themselves.

A good work of art isn’t a vehicle for its gist. It is a man walking on his own feet. It may have plenty of themes or meanings which can be summarized and plenty of quotes with stand-alone value, but the work itself is something to experience over time. Read the rest of this entry . . .

With Saint Patrick's Day coming up, we offer you a gorgeous Irish song by one of our favorite singers, Sissel Kyrkjebø. The song is one of departed love, which accounts for most Irish love songs.

I have another Sissel clip for you tonight! Amazing! What are the odds?

I used to do this one myself, as a solo, back when I sang. It always meant a lot to me.


I think I saw Sissel in this dress the first time I heard her live in Minot. So this is probably the same year. And the hair looks right.

As is my wont, I'll give you a Christmas poem by G. K. Chesterton. (It's odd, but I've never found any poet, no matter how great, who did Christmas better than he.)

A Christmas Carol

The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap,
His hair was like a light.
(O weary, weary were the world,
But here is all aright.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast,
His hair was like a star.
(O stern and cunning are the kings,
But here the true hearts are.)

The Christ-child lay on Mary's heart,
His hair was like a fire.
(O weary, weary is the world,
But here the world's desire.)

The Christ-child stood at Mary's knee,
His hair was like a crown,
And all the flowers looked up at Him,
And all the stars looked down.

A blessed Christmas to you and yours.

First of all, to set you up for the insult, I've got this clip (I think from the same concert as last night's song), where the Divine Sissel, along with a guy named Odd Nordstoga (I'm guessing he's Swedish, but can't say for sure; no relation to Dean Koontz' Odd Thomas) do the Norwegian version of "Silent Night." For some reason, instead of mentioning the silence of the night, as the German and English versions do, the Norwegian translation just says, "Glade jul, hellige jul," which means, "Merry Christmas, holy Christmas." In any case, I think it's a very nice arrangement. The country-sounding fiddle the guy in back is playing is actually the famous, double-strung Hardanger fiddle.
Read the rest of this entry . . .

As we near the Christmas holiday, the weather forecast calls for increasing snow up to Christmas day, when we expect a blizzard.

Just about a classic Minnesota December.

Somewhere, I suspect there's a climatologist desperately drafting a news release that will say, "The unsettling normality of this winter's weather is a sure sign of catastrophic climate change."

As a treat, because you've been good (except for Roy Jacobsen), I'll share this video, only about a month old, of the Divine Sissel, singing "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" in a concert in Oslo.

Terry Teachout has a copy in hand of his new biography on Louis Armstrong. He writes that his book is a bit different than other biographies on jazz musicians or popular figures. "I've sought to write a narrative biography of Louis Armstrong that is comparable in seriousness, scope, and literary quality to a 'definitive' high-culture biography of a great novelist--or a great classical composer," he says. Bravo, sir.

Update: The first video I posted was removed by the YouTube user.

Dale Nelson sends this link, to an article from the London Telegraph about James MacMillan, an "accessible" contemporary composer who is a devout Catholic, and who has written a piano concerto called "The Berserking."

So, what's it like to be a guitarist? Dan Skidmore says:

Without a doubt, the single biggest misconception people have about being a professional guitarist is that it is all about your technique on guitar . . . Unless you are Yngwie Malmsteen, being a professional guitarist is primarily about relating to and working well with other musicians. I bet even Mr. Malmsteen has had to say he’s sorry a couple times.

For example, one band I worked for was auditioning bass players. Following the auditions, we talked not only about each bassist’s skills, but also about what we termed his “potential jerk factor.” (We actually used a different word for “jerk.”) We would be spending a lot of time with anyone we hired. Is he pleasant to be around? Is he likely to show up for things on time? Will he do his share of all the work that goes into a gig? These considerations are at least as important as the musicianship. Any working musician will take a solid player with a good attitude over a virtuoso who is a pain.

The Dutch Violinist Janine Jansen plays Béla Bartók's Romanian Dances live from Prinsengrachtconcert Amsterdam 2005.

Phil posted a list of his ten favorite hymns this morning. So it seems in order that I post my own, if only to demonstrate how much better Lutheran hymnody is than Calvinist. The order is somewhat arbitrary.

1. “Make Me a Captive, Lord.” My all-time favorite, since I was a teenager. Not only is it set to “Leominster,” one of the most beautiful hymn tunes ever composed, but it has swords and battles. Written by George Matheson, the great, blind Scottish hymn writer.

2. “Wide Open Are Thy Hands.” Based on a hymn by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, it also—by some weird coincidence—is set to “Leominster.” No swords, alas.

3. “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go.” Well, what do you know? Another Matheson hymn. Talk about coincidences. There’s a legend that Matheson wrote this after being rejected by a fiancée, who walked out on him after she learned he was going blind. This story is not true, I understand.

4. “Be Thou My Vision.” “Ancient Irish hymn,” according to my hymn book. It’s even got a sword, though the “Be Thou my battle-shield, sword for the fight…” verse generally gets skipped.

5. “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.” The best of the Christmas hymns. A lesson in theology all by itself, courtesy of Charles Wesley. And fun to sing. The three beats of “Joyful all,” repeated again in the following line, just require you to throw back your head and let go.

6. “Den Store, Hvide Flokk.” I had to put a Norwegian hymn in here (although it’s actually Danish, but I’m trying to be complimentary). The title means “The Great White Host,” and it’s based on Revelation. It sounds like this.

7. “Amazing Grace.” Well, duh. I especially recommend Sissel’s recording (arranged by Andrae Crouch).

8. “Rock of Ages.” Solid and enduring.

9. “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.” By some guy named Luther. I actually prefer this one in a Contemporary Praise arrangement, if you can believe it. You’ve got to sing this one with gusto to get it right.

10. “Thee God We Praise.” Sung to the tune of “Finlandia,” another fine Scandinavian composition.

See you in church on Sunday.

I've been meaning to post this: Sherry is blogging a series on favorite hymns. "From Depths of Woe" is today focus and #90 on the top 101 list. I've never heard that one, but here's the list I gave Sherry for her series. These are my top 10, more or less because if I think about these too long I'll want to change a few.

1. Be Thou My Vision
2. Come Thou Fount
3. Before the Throne of God Above
4. O Sacred Head Now Wounded
5. God Be Merciful To Me
6. We Are God's People
7. And Can It Be
8. Amazing Grace
9. Shine, Jesus, Shine
10. Come, Ye Sinners

Read the rest of this entry . . .

I love this song.

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. (video with beautiful chant)

Last week, I risked offended our readers and my fellow blogger by recklessly posting a poem lightly referred to by one of the world's finest, Michael. Let me attempt to make up for that misjudgment by posting something beautiful, a bridal march.

I note that the bloated plutocrats who run television have chosen to put “House” opposite “Chuck” on the schedule tonight. Thus am I torn between two monosyllabically titled series that I especially enjoy.

I’ll have to go with “House.” “Chuck” is great, and even has a hot girl character named Walker, but Gregory House is the one character on television with whom I most identify. The pain of losing “House” will be greater than that of losing “Chuck.”

Someday (probably when I’m old, blind and deaf) I’ll get Tivo.

I went to a different church this past Sunday. Actually I’ve gone to this different church for the past two weeks. I was contemplating changing my membership (same national church body, different congregations).

As you may have noted from occasional blog posts of mine, my mild enthusiasm for what is called “praise music” in church has cooled over the years to indifference, and has now settled into plain loathing. Some people hate the music, but I can live with the music. It’s the lyrics that scratch my chalkboard. There are exceptions (I can think of exactly one, which we never use in our church anymore), but praise song lyrics are pretty generally amateurish, banal in sentiment, incoherent in theology, and repetitious. Some of them are like a slap in the face to anybody who’s ever attempted to write a decent song lyric. Read the rest of this entry . . .

One more Sissel performance to make your Christmas the best ever.


A blessed Christmas to all of you.

This a cut from Sissel's first Christmas album, which became the largest selling album ever in Norway (and still is, if I'm not mistaken). I think they sold copies equal to about half the country's population.

Sorry there's no live performance footage. But it's the song for tonight.

She's singing in Swedish, for some reason.

Don't ever say I'm not broadminded.