Arts & Humanities

Europe in Spite of Itself

By Philip V. Bohlman

By Philip V. Bohlman
For Rambo Amadeus, Montenegro’s entry in the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest (ESC), Europe’s annual spectacle of musical nationalism was over the moment it began. Randomly placed as the opening number in the first semi-final evening on 22 May, Rambo won only disdain from the millions of Eurovision fans who follow the build-up to Eurovision week. For Eurovision’s loyal minions Rambo did everything wrong: A bit portly, with unkempt hair and a poorly-fitting tuxedo, he rapped coarsely, unapologetically attacking the European financial crisis head-on.

Let’s hear it for the music team!

By Dominic McHugh
When the Tony Awards are announced this evening, no doubt most people will be looking at the big categories like Best Musical and Best Original Score. And these are the awards that are most likely to be exploited in the shows’ publicity in future months — rightly so, since it’s the coherence of the end product that makes or breaks a production in the long run.

Bits and Pieces of the Mother Road

By Eric Sandweiss
Route 66 is more famous and less necessary than ever. Gray-haired couples on motorcycles cruise past its boarded-up motels. Families stop at themed rest areas to eat at picnic stands shaped to resemble the iconic roadside attractions that the decommissioned highway no longer supports. Historic markers draw curious travelers off the interstate and onto meandering two-lane roads that peter out in quiet small-town Main Streets.

Mea Culpa

By Samuel Brown
Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign and the after-effects of a highly divisive campaign against gay marriage in California have brought intense media scrutiny to the Mormons and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some of the attention has been salutary: the academic study of Mormonism is finally taking off, and respected presses are publishing important new books on Mormonism.

‘A Beautiful Model’: Moral imitation in Islam

By F. E. Peters
The Imitatio Christi, composed by the German monk Thomas à Kempis (d. 1471), is a classic of Christian spirituality, widely read and translated from Latin into a variety of languages. It is not of course an instructional manual for the imitation of Christ — how does one imitate the Son of God? — nor Jesus of Nazareth, the man born of woman who was revealed to be the Son of God. Kempis’ famous work has little to do with the Jesus of the Gospels and more to do with Aristotle and the theology faculty at the University of Paris (he disapproved) and the Fathers of the Desert in early Christian Egypt (he approved, with reservations; they were a bit excessive in their asceticism).

From Dante to Umberto Eco: why read Italian literature?

By Peter Hainsworth
Most English-speakers who read literature have heard of Dante. Eliot, Pound and a host of other modern poets, critics and translators have made sure of that, though it’s a moot point whether many readers have followed Dante very far out of his dark wood. When it comes to other classic Italian writers, the darkness thickens.

Elizabeth Bowen in European modernism and the awakening of Irish consciousness

By Stephen Regan
Elizabeth Bowen was born in Dublin on 7 June 1899. She grew up in an elegant Georgian house on Herbert Place, close to the Grand Canal, hearing the busy rattle of trams going over the bridges and the lively bustle of barges carrying timber to a nearby sawmill. Her memoir of early childhood, Seven Winters (1942), recalls the sights and sounds of Dublin city life with striking clarity and immediacy. It both registers the unique and specific details of the author’s early years and takes up its place in a marvelously rich tradition of Irish memoir and autobiography.

The Beatles’ first visit to EMI, part 2

By Gordon Thompson
For the Beatles first visit to EMI, George Martin (the director of Parlophone Records) asked his associate Ron Richards to serve as the artist-and-repertoire manager, which involved rehearsing the band and running their session. Pop groups represented a normal part of Richards’ portfolio and clearly the Beatles didn’t rank high enough on Martin’s list of responsibilities to warrant his presence. That would eventually change, but on 6 June 1962, the Beatles presented only a blip on his radar.

Indian forces massacre Sikhs in Amritsar

This Day in World History
After months of standoff between India’s government and Sikh dissidents, the Indian army attacked those dissidents who had taken refuge in the holiest Sikh shrine — the Golden Temple, in Amritsar, India — on June 6, 1984. The fighting left hundreds dead and more captured. The attack also enraged many Sikhs across India, which would have fatal consequences for Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi, who had ordered the assault.

The Beatles’ first visit to EMI, part 1

By Gordon Thompson
Fifty years ago, the Beatles recorded for the first time in a building that would eventually bear the name of their last venture. On Wednesday, 6 June 1962, the most important rock band of the twentieth century auditioned at the EMI Recording Studios in Abbey Road, London.

To sell a son… Uncle Tom’s Cabin

On 5 June 1851, the abolitionist journal National Era began running a serial by the wife of a professor at Bowdoin College. A deeply religious and well-educated white woman, Harriet Beecher Stowe was an ardent opponent of slavery. As she wrote to the journal editor, Gamaliel Bailey: “I feel now that the time is come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak… I hope every woman who can write will not be silent.” The work, eventually titled Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Or Life Among the Lowly, became a national sensation.

Composing for a Diamond Jubilee

Will Todd has been commissioned to write an anthem for the celebrations marking The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, celebrating her 60 years as monarch. Choristers from St Paul’s and a ‘Diamond Choir’ of young singers from around the UK will perform The Call of Wisdom at the Service of Thanksgiving on 5 June at St Paul’s Cathedral. We asked Will to give us his thoughts on the new piece and the occasion it is celebrating.

How to write music fit for a queen

In 1953, 8,000 people in Westminster Abbey and millions of Britains gathered around televisions and radios, listened as 25-year-old Queen Elizabeth II was formally crowned. William Walton composed a March and a Te Deum for the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953. Known for its expressive quality and easy assimilation of disparate influences, Walton’s music provided an appropriate glamour and vitality necessary for such an occasion.

What news from Rome?

Nobody ever planned to create a state that would last more than a millennium and a half, yet Rome was able, in the end, to survive barbarian migrations, economic collapse, and even the conflicts between religions that had grown up within its borders. Today we have an image and myth of the indestructible empire. But this view is shifting as new research reveals small details about the life of Romans — emperor to slave — and how the empire survived. We sat down with Greg Woolf, author of Rome: An Empire’s Story, to discuss the enduring appeal of Ancient Rome and the latest breakthroughs in scholarship.

Innocence and Experience: Childhood in Kafka

By Ritchie Robertson
Some of the great modernists have written evocatively about childhood. At first glance, Kafka may not seem to be among them. The minutely detailed recollection of childhood that Proust provides in Swann’s Way, or Thomas Mann’s account of a school day in the life of young Hanno Buddenbrook, lack counterparts in Kafka. His world-famous and compelling fantasies are about inscrutable authorities, such as the Court and the Castle, and their victims are doomed at worst to inexplicable punishment, at best to frustration. Kafka would seem to deal with experience rather than innocence.

Michael Palin on anxiety

By Daniel Freeman and Jason Freeman
Everyone experiences anxiety from time to time. But what about those people for whom anxiety is an inevitable part of their working life, such as actors and presenters? How do they cope? We asked Michael Palin, member of the legendary Monty Python team and long established as one of the nation’s most cherished broadcasters, how he copes with nerves as a performer. As it turns out, the strategies he adopts can be useful to anyone struggling with anxiety. Here’s an extract from our interview.