"The justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity." - Glenn Gould One of the greatest classical pianists of the 20th century, Glenn Gould, shocked the world at age thirty-one when he announced his permanent retirement from public performance. Denouncing the concert hall as a relative of the Roman Colosseum and audiences as a "force of evil", for the sake of his artistic integrity and personal sanity he committed the rest of his musical life to recording in the studio. Gould's brilliant and sometimes provocative performances of classical masterworks are well known, especially his unequaled recordings of Bach. But he was also a prolific, articulate, and no less provocative critic. In essays like "The Prospects of Recording", he laid out his philosophy of performance, of the relation between technology and music. He described his own experimentation with unconventional recording techniques, and made bold and often accurate predictions about how recording technology would change how the average person would relate to music. And he outright rejected many of the stagnant conventions of contemporary classical performance. In this episode, Thomas discusses Gould's fascinating (and often entertaining) views on music and technology, and plays a number of his recordings. If you've never heard Gould play, you're missing out. If you have, you'll find this episode all the more interesting.  Pieces played in this episode (all performed by Glenn Gould): J. S. Bach, Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I: Prelude and Fugue no. 3 in C-sharp major, Fugue no. 20 in A major, Prelude no. 21 in B-flat major Bach, Two- and Three-Part Inventions: Invention no. 12 in A major, Sinfonia no. 5 in E-flat major, Sinfonia no. 9 in F minor Brahms, Intermezzo No. 2 in A major, op. 118 Beethoven, Symphony No. 5, IV. Allegro, piano transcription by Franz Liszt Thomas Mirus's 2011 essay "Glenn Gould in the Studio" https://thomasmirus.com/2013/05/20/glenn-gould-in-the-studio This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

This episode contains clips of highlights from episodes 51 and 53-55 of the Catholic Culture Podcast. Links (in order of clips) The Hundredfold - Anthony Esolen https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-55-hundredfold-anthony-esolen/ Bringing Melody Back to Pop Music - The Duskwhales https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-51-bringing-melody-back-to-pop-music-duskwhales/ God Made Us for Order and Surprise - John-Mark Miravalle https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-53-god-made-us-for-order-and-surprise-john-mark-miravalle/ Fostering Responsible Elites - Jonah Bennett https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/episode-54-fostering-responsible-elites-jonah-bennett/  

One of the best contemporary natural law philosophers, J. Budszizewski, joins the show to discuss his new book, How (and How Not) to Be Happy, spiritual warfare in the classroom, and his journey from “macho nihilism” to faith. Topics include: Why virtue alone won’t make you happy Why the Greeks said “Call no man happy until he is dead” A critique of the Stoic revival How belief in the afterlife allows us to be honest about suffering in this life Teaching secular students about natural law Breaking through people’s self-deception Budszizewski's youthful embrace of nihilism and how God broke down his intellectual pride Links How (and How Not) To Be Happy https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/How-and-How-Not-to-Be-Happy/J-Budziszewski/9781684511075 Underground Thomist website http://www.undergroundthomist.org Join Online Great Books with 25% off your first three months via this link https://hj424.isrefer.com/go/ogbmemberships/tmirus/ Other recommended books by J. Budszizewski: What We Can’t Not Know: A Guide https://www.amazon.com/What-We-Cant-Not-Know/dp/1586174819 The Meaning of Sex https://www.amazon.com/Meaning-Sex-J-Budziszewski/dp/1610170997 CatholicCulture.org is in the middle of its Easter 2022 fundraising campaign. Generous donors have offered us a $60,000 matching challenge grant. If you donate between now and Pentecost Sunday, your donation will be doubled! Please help us keep our apostolate going. If you use this link your donation will be earmarked for podcast production: http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

In Holy Week of 1962, Bishop Karol Wojtyla gave a retreat to a group of Polish artists. The text of that retreat has now been published in English, along with commentary, by the Theology of the Body Institute, in a book titled God Is Beauty: A Retreat on the Gospel and Art. Christopher West, president of the TOB Institute, joins Thomas Mirus to discuss the retreat and how it fits together with St. John Paul II's Theology of the Body. Themes include: God is Beauty The Incarnation is perfect Beauty manifested in the human body The artist is a conduit of beauty coming from God Artists’ responsibility for their talent The sexed body as a sign of the relationality and fruitfulness of the Trinity The dangers of "moral minimalism" The Crucifixion, where moral conscience and beauty meet How Wojtyla's work builds on, rather than replaces, traditional theological symbolism Thomas also discusses his experience of attending the ballet and how it is challenging him to see the body in a new way. Links Listeners can purchase God Is Beauty paperback at the TOB Institute store for 20% off the cover price (no limit). Use code: CULTURE https://shop.corproject.com/collections/books/products/god-is-beauty-a-retreat-on-the-gospel-art Upcoming retreat weekend, May 13-15 https://www.revealedexperience.com Episode with ballet dancer Claire Kretzschmar https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/109-catholic-in-nyc-ballet-claire-kretzschmar Dony MacManus https://donymacmanus.com/ This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Thomas Mirus reads his article "Fatima Today: In Defense of Private Revelation". The first part of this article is a reminder of the essential importance of Fatima in our time. The second, and longer, part corrects a misunderstanding of private revelation held by many—namely that whatever falls into this category can make no claim on our mind or conscience, and that it is a matter of indifference whether we pay heed to it. Links Thomas V. Mirus, "Fatima Today: In Defense of Private Revelation" https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/fatima-today-in-defense-private-revelation/ Deacon Bob Ellis, "Our role in the defeat of the global Communist revolution" https://www.bluearmy.com/our-role-in-the-defeat-of-the-global-communist-revolution/ The First Saturday Devotion https://www.bluearmy.com/first-saturday-devotion/ This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Katy Carl, author of the excellent new novel As Earth Without Water and editor-in-chief of the Catholic arts journal Dappled Things, joins the show to discuss the novel and the state of the Catholic literary scene. The publisher's description of As Earth Without Water: When Dylan Fielding, celebrated contemporary visual artist, becomes Br. Thomas Augustine, novice at Our Lady of the Pines monastery, he finds delight not only in the shock his choice causes everyone around him but—to his own surprise—in the rhythms of the life itself. Shortly before he solidifies a lifelong commitment to the community, a traumatic encounter with an abusive priest plunges Thomas Augustine into terror and doubt. Reeling and uncertain, he reaches out to his friend, rival, and former lover, Angele Solomon, with hopes that she can help him to speak the difficult truth. As she attempts to advocate for her friend, Angele must ask how the scars left by their common past—as well as newer harms—can ever be healed or transcended. The wider inquiries demanded next will transfigure how both of them picture a range of human and divine things: time and memory; art and agency; trust and responsibility; and what it might mean to know real freedom.   Links As Earth Without Water https://www.wisebloodbooks.com/store/p115/katy-carl-as-earth-without-water.html Dappled Things https://www.dappledthings.org/ Catholic Imagination Conference 2022 https://udallas.edu/centers/cowan/cic/index.php This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Today's guest is Chase Faucheux, translator of a recent biography of Pope St. Gregory the Great. Topics include: The very low point in Rome's history in which Gregory came of age His being all things to all men in the city of Rome, as both a spiritual and temporal leader His longing for the monastic life even after he became Pope His remarkable forthrightness about his own shortcomings His diplomatic attempts to keep barbarians from destroying his city Links Sigrid Grabner, In the Eye of the Storm: A Biography of Gregory the Great https://ignatius.com/in-the-eye-of-the-storm-iesp/ This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

This is a significantly truncated version of the original episode. Listen to the full episode here: https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/126-how-charlie-parker-changed-my-life/ Thomas Mirus goes solo in this episode to talk about how his relationship to music was completely transformed in his late teens, by exposure to the music of alto saxophonist Charlie Parker. Before he had used music to stimulate an emotional response, but soon he found himself listening for the sake of musical beauty itself, regardless of emotions or lack thereof. This quickly opened up a whole world of contemplation (musical and otherwise). After discussing this deeper way of listening to music, Thomas explains how to follow the musical form of a jazz performance, and introduces the music of Charlie Parker and the new form of jazz he pioneered in the 1940s and early 50s, known as bebop. If you want to listen more extensively to the jazz artists heard in this episode, check out these albums (no links because these things are always going in and out of print in different compilations): Charlie Parker, listen to the complete Savoy and Dial master takes in whatever compilation you can find Bud Powell, Jazz Giant Clifford Brown and Max Roach at Basin Street Sonny Rollins Plus Four Music heard in this episode: Blind Lemon Jefferson, “Rising High Water Blues” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsFNi0ZVzj4 Charlie Parker, “Perhaps” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LOOvq1sJvw Charlie Parker, “Blues for Alice” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7USMqAH8qk Charlie Parker, “Parker’s Mood” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Wa7El-k3jQ Charlie Parker, “Anthropology” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HkFBT4h190 Bud Powell, “So Sorry Please” from Jazz Giant https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-IoDXFWr1c&list=PL9C4lRUjCkCt_oXThX81D3LhhRIUXVDqb&index=6 Clifford Brown and Max Roach, “Gertrude’s Bounce” from At Basin Street https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQ7TdrmmDkc&list=PLUJ7V33M1wR3yDePSuvG8W1LmV3uuPg-S&index=8 Sonny Rollins, “Pent-Up House” from Plus Four https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INeqyCTvm4s&list=OLAK5uy_k6jR4wR5XEIyRL95Ov95VXhkYkAKQZIfw This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

Art historian Elizabeth Lev joins the show to discuss her new book, The Silent Knight: A History of St. Joseph as Depicted in Art. The book offers not only a history of sixteen centuries of art featuring St. Joseph, but also an account of the development of devotion to St. Joseph over the past two thousand years -from the old man sitting overlooked in the corner of early Nativity scenes to the glorious Patron of the Univeral Church. Links Watch on YouTube to see the artworks discussed: https://youtu.be/LiPgnGAcu-s Elizabeth Lev, The Silent Knight https://www.sophiainstitute.com/products/item/the-silent-knight Episode with Elizabeth on the history of St. Anthony Abbot in art https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/90-temptation-st-anthony-elizabeth-lev/ Episode with Elizabeth on the film Ben-Hur https://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/ben-hur-1959-w-elizabeth-lev/ This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio

For two decades, Maggie Gallagher was a leading voice writing about the importance of permanent, monogamous marriage to society. At first, that included pointing out the problems with divorce, feminism and single parenthood. Then as same-sex marriage became the predominant issue, Gallagher became the public face of the movement against it. A few years after the Supreme Court made gay marriage legal across the 50 states, Gallagher switched gears when Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco asked her to be Executive Director of the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship, which he founded in 2013. She says that to avoid despair, we have to build beautiful things. In this interview Maggie discusses: How becoming a single mother in college led her to focus her career on the defense of marriage Her time in the pro-marriage movement, including co-founding the National Organization for Marriage Why the defenders of marriage were less effective than the pro-life movement Why certain critiques of the pro-life movement's political involvement are unfair American classical liberalism’s inability to think about social institutions Meeting Archbishop Cordileone and getting involved in the BXVI Institute The BXVI Institute's patronage of the arts, especially the liturgical arts The Archbishop's campaign of prayer and fasting for the conversion of Nancy Pelosi Links www.BenedictInstitute.org Benedict XVI Institute on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4a0pooErfPoWck0xc7WHGg Maggie Gallagher, Enemies of Eros https://www.amazon.com/Enemies-Eros-Revolution-Killing-Marriage/dp/0929387007 Maggie Gallagher and Linda Waite, The Case for Marriage https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/184776/the-case-for-marriage-by-linda-j-waite-and-maggie-gallagher/ This podcast is a production of CatholicCulture.org. If you like the show, please consider supporting us! http://catholicculture.org/donate/audio