The Pursuit of Beauty with Matthew Wilkinson

Matthew Wilkinson
  • 5.0 (7)
  • MUSIC COMMENTARY

We explore topics such as classical music, Orthodox chant, Bach, Messiaen, architecture, symbolism, the philosophy of mind, aesthetics, and the general pursuit of Beauty.

  1. 3D AGO

    The King's Iconographer

    In this conversation, I sit down with Aidan Hart, an internationally renowned iconographer, liturgical artist, and multiple-time artist commissioned by King Charles III, to explore the meaning of sacred art in the modern world.We discuss what iconography really is, why hierarchy does not mean domination but the transmission of grace, and how the architecture of East and West reveals radically different theological visions. Aidan explains the difference between Romanesque and Byzantine art, why darkness in a church reveals light rather than hides it, and how sacred geometry quietly shapes the composition of icons.We also explore the surprising connections between Celtic and Coptic Christianity, the Egyptian roots of interlaced design, and how early trade routes shaped Christian art in Britain. Along the way, Aidan reflects on his time as a novice monk, his work in monasteries, and why he ultimately left the hermitage in order to live a quieter life.The conversation moves into modern art (Kandinsky, Brancusi, Matisse) and how 20th-century abstraction was deeply influenced by Orthodox iconography. We discuss elongation in icon painting, the meaning of abstraction, and the hidden mathematical proportions behind sacred images.If you are interested in theology, sacred architecture, hierarchy, beauty, Orthodox Christianity, Romanesque art, or the philosophy of modern art, this episode is for you.Aidan's sites: https://www.aidanharticons.com/https://www.aidanhartmosaics.com/https://www.aidanharticons.com/furnishings/my sites: https://matthewwilkinson.net/https://www.patreon.com/MatthewWilkinsonMusic

    1h 53m

  2. FEB 4

    Why the Avant-Garde Isn’t the Enemy of Tradition

    Modern music, classical music, avant-garde, tonality, postmodernism, and music philosophy are at the center of this conversation between composer and analyst Samuel Andreyev and host Matthew Wilkinson. Together, they examine one of the most common stories we are told about modern music and ask whether it is actually true.A central claim explored here is that tonality never disappeared. While figures such as Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Milton Babbitt developed new and experimental musical systems, tonal music continued to exist alongside them. The conversation challenges the idea that Western music followed a single, linear path away from tradition.The episode looks closely at the role of the avant-garde. Rather than destroying earlier musical languages, the avant-garde expanded the range of what was possible. Andreyev argues that modernism did not replace older forms but added new ones, creating a plural musical landscape rather than a hierarchy with a single center.Wilkinson raises questions about hierarchy and postmodern thought, asking whether modern suspicion toward hierarchy in philosophy also shaped music. Andreyev responds by rejecting simplified historical narratives and emphasizing coexistence. Composers like Stravinsky, Shostakovich, and Arvo Pärt continued to write music grounded in tradition even during the height of musical modernism.The discussion also explains why universities and conservatories became central to composition after World War II. With traditional patronage gone, academic institutions offered stability. This shaped which musical styles were promoted, especially those that could be explained as technical or theoretical research.Both speakers address the idea that modern audiences have lost interest in serious art. Instead, they suggest that audiences have fragmented, not disappeared. Today, niche audiences can be large enough to sustain meaningful artistic work outside major institutions.Andreyev speaks about artistic authenticity, arguing that artists do not choose their style strategically. They write what they feel compelled to write. Tradition survives, he suggests, not by freezing forms in place, but by allowing creativity, tension, and renewal.This conversation offers a clear and accessible way to rethink modern music. It invites listeners, musicians and non-musicians alike, to question familiar myths and to see tradition and innovation as partners rather than enemies.

    1h 3m

  3. JAN 25

    Jordan Hall on the solution to AI Music and the future of Bitcoin

    In this episode, I’m joined by philosopher and systems thinker Jordan Hall for a wide-ranging conversation about AI, music, and the future of human creativity. As artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes how music is made and distributed, a deeper question emerges: does it matter whether art is human-made? And if it does, how would we even know? Jordan proposes that we are entering a moment where “human” itself becomes a genre. In a culture increasingly saturated with synthetic media, authenticity may soon require verification rather than assumption. We explore what it would mean to certify music as human-made, why audiences may begin to seek out verified human art, and how trust breaks down when reality becomes difficult to discern. The conversation expands beyond music into larger philosophical territory—identity, meaning, technology, and the collapse of shared standards of truth online. We discuss why existing institutions and platforms are poorly equipped to address these challenges, and why purely technical solutions are insufficient without deeper human and moral foundations. This is not a conversation about resisting technology, but about placing it in proper order. Music, art, and creativity are not merely outputs; they are expressions of human agency, soul, and responsibility. When those foundations erode, culture follows. If you care about art, philosophy, and the future of human creativity in an AI-saturated world, this episode is for you. now write me a description for spotify

    56 min

  4. JAN 14

    The Normandy Cantata and the Cost of Losing Beauty | Dr John Wykoff

    This is Part Two of my conversation with Dr. John Wykoff, composer and scholar. We continue a wide-ranging discussion on beauty, worship, church music, and the long-term consequences of losing aesthetic seriousness in the life of the church.Dr. Wykoff reflects on how churches came to measure success through efficiency, attendance, and growth, and why those metrics often displace formation, meaning, and truth. We explore why the familiar divide between traditional and contemporary worship fails to describe what is actually at stake, and how beauty does more than decorate belief. It shapes moral vision, memory, and responsibility over time.The conversation then turns toward composition and context. Dr. Wykoff speaks in depth about Out of This Darkness: A Normandy Cantata, his collaboration with poet Tony Silvestri and conductor Cameron LaBarr. We discuss text setting, musical form, acoustic space, and the importance of place and purpose in sacred music, even when that music is heard outside its original context.This episode will be of particular interest to church musicians, composers, conductors, clergy, and anyone concerned with sacred music, liturgy, theology, and culture. It is neither a polemic nor an exercise in nostalgia. It is a serious conversation about beauty, responsibility, and what is at risk when worship becomes detached from form and meaning.Dr. John Wykoff is an American composer whose choral and sacred works are widely performed and recorded. His music is published internationally and sung by leading ensembles in both concert and liturgical settings.

    1h 19m

  5. JAN 6

    The Gregorian Chant Interview (Biggest Myths Debunked) | Bruno de Labriolle

    Bruno de Labriolle (Ecole Gregorienne) joins Matthew Wilkinson on the Pursuit of Beauty Podcast to discuss the true history of Gregorian chant, the folk method of singing, ornamentation, relationship with Byzantium and Orthodoxy, singing with drones and instruments, and more.Bruno traces the “Gregorian chant” narrative to roughly around the year 750, when Pippin the Short seeks legitimacy and power in a shifting medieval world. The move toward a “Roman” sound is not just a devotional preference, but part of a larger realignment of kingship, empire, and ecclesiastical influence. One of the most striking moments: Pippin’s dissatisfaction with what later gets called Gallican chant, and his desire to replace it with “Roman song” as a symbol of legitimacy. Bruno explains how the Pope’s interests and Pippin’s interests converge, and why importing cantors becomes a cultural project with major musical consequences. But if chant is primarily oral, how do singers “learn something new,” especially after decades of singing by heart? Bruno describes how a singer can retain a text and broad melodic outline, yet still reshape the line through habitual gestures and local “savoir-faire,” even when everyone is trying to be faithful. This leads to the core claim: what we call Gregorian chant emerges as a cross-fertilization—a blending of an Old Roman repertoire framework with Gallican practices (including ornamentation and modal understanding). In other words, it is not simply “Rome imposing its music,” but an evolving synthesis driven by people, memory, and power. Over time, the irony deepens: Rome itself becomes a place where many different peoples sing many different musics, and eventually Old Roman chant is displaced by the more widespread “Gregorian” usage. Bruno even notes later efforts to enforce the new norm, including a tradition of suppressing older books as the center of gravity shifts. We also unpack why the Solesmes method became so dominant in modern imagination: a practical “vehicle” that lets almost anyone pick up a book and sing via simple note-values (rather than needing a specialist choirmaster). Bruno contrasts this with the semiological approach associated with figures like Dom Cardine, aimed at interpreting early neumes (not square notation) and what they imply musically. If you care about Gregorian chant performance practice, chant rhythm, neumes, and what “authenticity” can realistically mean, this conversation will reframe how you hear chant forever. Whether you sing in a schola, study medieval notation, or simply love sacred music, Bruno offers a rigorous, living way to think about tradition—rooted in history, but not trapped by modern myths.

    2h 45m

  6. 12/09/2025

    They Won’t Forgive You If They’re Mediocre | Allen Hightower on Building Beautiful Choirs

    This week on The Pursuit of Beauty I sit down with Dr. Allen Hightower, Director of Choral Studies at the University of North Texas, for an honest and deeply pastoral conversation about choirs, faith, and the people who stand in front of us every week and sing. We talk very candidly about the real problems choir directors and church musicians face: how to work with aging voices and the infamous “old lady wobble,” why volunteers will forgive almost anything except being in a mediocre choir, and how to make hard musical decisions without wounding the people you serve. Allen opens up about the role of the conductor as a pastoral presence, not just a technician, and what it means to love your choir enough to tell them the truth and still keep their dignity intact. From there we move into bigger questions about sacred music, text, and belief. Can you perform Bach’s passions with integrity if you do not actually believe what the text proclaims? What does it mean to teach and conduct explicitly Christian works in a secular university setting? Allen shares how he navigates these tensions at UNT, and why wrestling seriously with the words we sing is essential if the music is going to do the spiritual and human work it was written to do. We also explore the thorny question of singing music from other religious traditions, from Holst’s Hymns from the Rig Veda to Sufi and Hindu devotional repertoire. How should Christian musicians think about programming this music, and what responsibility do we have given the embarrassment of riches in our own tradition’s choral literature? If you are a choir director, a church musician, a choral singer, or simply someone who cares about the intersection of beauty, truth, and the people in your choir loft, this conversation is for you. In this episode: How to lead volunteers who desperately want to be good, without bullying them What to do with aging voices and the “old lady wobble” in a church choir Why singers will not forgive you if they or the choir are mediocre The conductor as pastor, not just time beater Teaching and performing explicitly Christian music in a secular university Can you sing sacred texts with integrity if you do not believe them Should Christians sing music from other religious traditions The spiritual vocation of choral music in a disenchanted age Allen Hightower, Matthew Wilkinson, choir, choral music, church music, sacred music, university choir, aging voices, old lady wobble, choral conducting, choral pedagogy, Bach, Rig Veda, faith and art, Christian music, UNT, Pursuit of Beauty podcast.

    2h 13m

  7. 12/02/2025

    Modern Art Is Collapsing: Jonathan Pageau & Andrew Gould on What Comes Next

    In this wide-ranging round table, architect Andrew Gould, icon carver and storyteller Jonathan Pageau, and host Matthew Wilkinson sit down over whiskey to wrestle with the future of beauty, sacred art, and architecture. We start with pirates and sea shanties, then quickly slide into Jackson Pollock, Rothko, oil slicks, marbled end-papers, and the problem of modern art hung in the wrong place. Andrew and Jonathan both argue that modernism is what happens when a long, rich tradition becomes fragmented and hyper-specialized. They compare Rothko’s color fields and Pollock’s rhythm to bark on a tree or the shimmering colors of an oil slick on water; there is a real beauty there, but it makes sense only when it is framed by more ordered and more meaningful.Andrew argues that the only real future of art lies in applied arts; things that serve a social purpose: church buildings, icons, interior decoration, good rooms, and good furniture. Oil paintings used to be “applied” in this way; they were made to hang in beautiful houses, to honor a patron, to decorate a dining room, to stand in as an “icon” of a king or bishop. Once painting is made only for galleries and commentary, it begins to eat itself. Jonathan pushes the conversation further and claims that liturgical art is the ultimate applied art. Icons, church architecture, and sacred music do not just distract you after work; they shape your life, your sense of honor, your memory, and your relationship to God and neighbor.From there, the three of you turn to cities, localism, and the built environment. Using Charleston as a case study, Andrew explains how historic districts, design review boards, and legal language originally intended to protect “historic styles” can be slowly re-interpreted to bless modernist glass boxes. You talk about shame, honor, and love; how a developer begins to think differently once he has to live in the town whose skyline he has altered, and how truly beautiful buildings quietly pressure people to dress differently, dine differently, and behave with greater dignity. Along the way, you touch on Greek islands that restrict ownership to locals, empty second homes in historic neighborhoods, and the way a truly beautiful room can transform a dinner party of ordinary college students into something solemn, joyful, and unforgettable.The discussion widens into the metaphysics of beauty and love. Drawing on the classical “transcendentals” of truth, goodness, and beauty, and a provocative list of “satanic transcendentals” such as fashion, sentimentality, and cruelty, you explore the difference between genuine love and mere infatuation. Fashion shocks; it trades in novelty and quickly becomes dated like shag carpet or yesterday’s architectural fad. Real beauty, by contrast, remains loveable across generations, which is why Baroque, Gothic, and classical buildings can be revived again and again, while certain “cutting edge” styles age badly within a decade. The same questions are applied to Orthodox iconography, mannerism, elongated figures, realism, Caravaggio and Rubens, and the danger of making saints look like glossy fashion models rather than members of the Kingdom.You hear concrete examples: Rublev’s Trinity as a bold yet deeply rooted innovation; Gothic portals where elongated saints grow up into the architecture like living columns; Father Silouan’s icons that quietly borrow from modern color theory and postmodern composition while remaining immediately venerable for a village grandmother; Russian attempts to integrate turn-of-the-century realism and Art Nouveau into church painting; and the tragic history of smoke-darkened Byzantine churches repeatedly repainted until the original brilliance vanished beneath cheap overpainting. We talk pirates and sea shanties, Pollock and Rothko, Rubens and Caravaggio, Charleston and Greek islands, Francis Bacon and Schiele, fashion and transcendence.

    1h 58m

  8. 11/23/2025

    The Hidden Escape Plan Inside "Wade in the Water" | Gullah Spirituals with Ann Caldwell

    n this episode of The Pursuit of Beauty, Matthew sits down with legendary Charleston vocalist and storyteller Ann Caldwell to uncover the hidden world of spirituals, Gullah culture, and the music of the enslaved. From “Wade in the Water” to “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot,” Ann explains how these songs often carried coded messages of escape, using biblical language, river imagery, and “chariots” to talk about the Underground Railroad, freedom, and survival when plain speech was impossible. Ann shares her own story as a Gullah-rooted artist raised in the Lowcountry of South Carolina, and opens a window into praise houses, ring shouts, and call and response worship that shaped the spiritual life of enslaved communities. She talks about how the Gullah language developed, why rhythm and movement are inseparable from the songs, and how spirituals hold together profound faith, doubt, lament, and hope all at once. The conversation also wrestles with honest questions about race, ownership, and performance. Can white choirs sing spirituals with integrity. What does it mean for predominantly white ensembles to perform music that was born in the suffering of enslaved Africans. How do we honor the people who created these songs while allowing the music to live, grow, and be heard by new generations. Ann answers with the disarming mix of humor, directness, and pastoral wisdom that has made her beloved throughout Charleston. Along the way you will hear about Mahalia Jackson, jazz arrangements of spirituals, the Society for the Preservation of Spirituals, and the way these songs continue to echo through Black church music, jazz, gospel, and American culture today. If you care about church music, spirituals, Gullah history, race, theology, or the story of the American South, this conversation will change the way you hear these songs forever.

    1h 7m
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We explore topics such as classical music, Orthodox chant, Bach, Messiaen, architecture, symbolism, the philosophy of mind, aesthetics, and the general pursuit of Beauty.

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