Plough Quarterly No 31 Why We Make Music

Communal music has the power to shape a soul and a society. In many places today, a culture of singing and making music remains robust, despite pressure from the commercial music industry. Or it was until the Covid pandemic hit and we glimpsed what a world without communal music-making could be like. According to Plato, virtuous music is vital for building a virtuous community. Jewish and Christian traditions take this insight even further: good communal music shapes and builds up the people of God. So how can we choose good music and avoid the bad? The sheer ubiquity of music available for consumption - its presence as a near-constant soundtrack to our daily lives - poses a hazard. Digital music on tap is a temptation to chronic distraction of the soul, to a habit of superficiality and non-attention. Fortunately, the remedy is straightforward: spend less time consuming prepackaged tunes and more time making music. This will be doubly rewarding if done with others - singing with one's family, singing in church, playing in a string quartet, starting a regular jam session. If personal media players tend to cut us off from the physical presence of others, sharing in good music together breaks the spell of isolation and disembodiment. It builds friendship and community. On this theme: - Maureen Swinger's amateur choir sings Bach's Saint Matthew Passion. - Stephen Michael Newby says Black spirituals aren't just for Black people. - Mary Townsend finds Dolly Parton magnificent, but would Aristotle? - Phil Christman finds catharsis in the YouTube comments of eighties songs. - Ben Crosby says congregational singing should be unabashedly weird to visitors. - Joseph Julián González draws on ancient Nahua poets in his music. - Christopher Tin explains why he weaves so many historical influences into his music. - Seven musicians talk about making your own music in schools, churches, prisons, backyards, or children's bedrooms: Nathan Schram, Esther Keiderling, Norann Voll, Chaka Watch Ngwenya, Eileen Maendel, Adora Wong, and Brittany Petruzzi. Also in the issue: Exclusive excerpts from forthcoming books by Eugene Vodolazkin and Esther Maria Magnis - Thoughts on music from Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, Hildegard of Bingen, Martin Luther, and Eberhard Arnold - Catholics and Anabaptists unite to commemorate the Radical Reformation - New poems by Jacqueline Saphra - A profile of Argentinian singer Mercedes Sosa. - Reviews of Kate Clifford Larson's Walk with Me, Rowan Williams's Shakeshafte, and Sam Quinones's The Least of Us Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to apply their faith to the challenges we face. Each issue includes in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art.

'During the Tang dynasty, the Chinese artist Wu Tao-tzu was one day standing looking at a mural he had just completed. Suddenly, he clapped his hands and the temple gate opened. He went into his work and the gates closed behind him.' Thus begins Sven Lindqvist's profound meditation on art and its relationship with life, first published in 1967, and a classic in his home country - it has never been out of print. As a young man, Sven Lindqvist was fascinated by the myth of Wu Tao-tzu, and by the possibility of entering a work of art and making it a way of life. He was drawn to artists and writers who shared this vision, especially Hermann Hesse, in his novel Glass Bead Game. Partly inspired by Hesse's work, Lindqvist lived in China for two years, learning classical calligraphy from a master teacher. There he was drawn deeper into the idea of a life of artistic perfectionism and retreat from the world. But when he left China for India and then Afghanistan, and saw the grotesque effects of poverty and extreme inequality, Lindqvist suffered a crisis of confidence and started to question his ideas about complete immersion in art at the expense of a proper engagement with life. The Myth of Wu Tao-tzu takes us on a fascinating journey through a young man's moral awakening and his grappling with profound questions of aesthetics. It contains the bracing moral anger, and poetic, intensely atmospheric travel writing Lindqvist's readers have come to love.

Can we ever really understand the present without first understanding the past? From the winner of the 2019 Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Prize, and the author of the multi-award winning Laurus, comes a sweeping novel that takes readers on a fascinating journey through one of the most momentous periods in Russian history. What really happened to General Larionov of the Imperial Russian Army, who somehow avoided execution by the Bolsheviks? He lived out his long life in Yalta leaving behind a vast heritage of undiscovered memoirs. In modern day Russia, a young student is determined to find out the truth. Solovyov and Larionov is a ground-breaking and gripping literary detective novel from one of Russia's greatest contemporary writers.

This masterpiece by Engels reflects his views on the plight of labour classes in England. It is based on his in-depth research and parliamentary reports. In a factual and analytic manner he has voiced his support for fundamental human rights. It is an emphatic protest against the barbarianism of capitalism and industrialization. A prototypical opus!

This study examines the spirituality of the Bruderhof community. It gives particular attention to Eberhard Arnold (1883-1935) and a small number of people around him, including his wife Emmy and her sister Else von Hollander, who founded the first Bruderhof community in Sannerz, Germany, in 1920. The argument made here is that the Bruderhof was formed as a consequence of a concern for a number of aspects which were seen as related: authentic evangelical spirituality, community of goods instead of private property, openness to the Holy Spirit, a simple form of church life that sought to draw from the New Testament, and "the way of peace." This study explores these themes both in the early Bruderhof period and also in an important recent Bruderhof publication, Foundations, and relates them to the Anabaptist tradition.

Covers how to plow with horses using older equipment and new implements. Here you will find simple diagrams explaining tricky adjustments for both riding and walking plows. Detailed engineer's drawings will be immensely helpful to folks restoring equipment. Also includes close-up photos and information on new makes of animal-drawn plows including Pioneer and White Horse.