Dr. Peter Kwasniewski has written an intriguing article on “artful music” and its place in Catholic culture. If you are looking for instant auricular gratification, then classical music is not for you. Composer Kwasniewski stresses that appreciation of artful music can only be through a process of maturation. Like a fine wine, “it must breathe” in order to elevate the emotions, not only of sense, but, he says, of the intellect. The music ought to tell a tale of nobility or tragedy through rhythm and harmony, “compound time signatures, pitch in bass and treble clef, key signatures, the circle of fifths, scales and intervals.” My education has begun.
Corpus Christi Watershed: So important is it to have some sort of understanding of how the noble art of music works, and so important is it to become familiar with at least some of the great composers of the Western tradition, that all of the students here at Wyoming Catholic College (where I teach) are required to take two semesters of Music Theory & History. Read the whole of this masterful article here.
