composers Archives : Professor Carol

So What If Beethoven Was Deaf?

February 7, 2023August 4, 2022 by Professor Carol

Beethoven was deaf. So what? This video essay, filmed at Highlands Latin School, considers a favorite topic: how to study composers. Lest you think I don’t like composers, remember that we offer a Composer-of-the-Month page, chocked with performances, segments of master classes, and commentary. You … Read more

Rossini and Bartók

July 1, 2021July 1, 2021 by Professor Carol

On my mind are two famous composers: Gioachino Rossini and Bela Bartók. You would be hard-pressed to find two more different figures, truth be told. Both made their careers during artistically fruitful periods (Rossini, during the early 19th century; Bartók, across the turbulent stretch of … Read more

And Then There's This . . .

Vince Bielski, When Classical Learning Meets Public Education the Dialogue Isn’t Always Socratic. “Classical education, whose name gained traction in the 1980s to evoke the movement’s focus on liberal arts and the Western canon, is struggling to overcome local political opposition.”

Peter Wood, After College: The Coming Cultural Collapse of Higher Education. “Students graduate with a veneer of knowledge rather than a core. An increasingly obsolescent institution has wedded itself to an increasingly noisome cultural stance.”

Anthony Esolen, Heap Songs Upon Their Heads. “We are the most beauty-starved people, I am persuaded, who have ever trod the earth.”

Gregory Wolfe, The Wound of Beauty. “The time has come to bring beauty back, to give it the glass slipper and invite it to the prom.”