Honoring Jacques Barzun

Jacques Barzun
was born in Créteil, France
on 30 November 1907

My notion about any artist is that we honor him best by reading him, by playing his music, by seeing his plays or by looking at his pictures. We don’t need to fall all over ourselves with adjectives and epithets. Let’s play him more.
— Jacques Barzun, in an interview with John C. Tibbetts

in the offices of Scribner’s in 1987 as the two discuss what became the radio series The World of Robert Schumann.

Note from Jacques Barzun

“I want the many well-wishers — friends and strangers who have greeted me on my recent birthday — to know that I have been greatly moved by these kind messages. I thank everyone for these expressions of good will, which I regret that I cannot acknowledge individually.”

-JB
 

Rules of Weight

Paper by Charles L. Barzun, Notre Dame Law Review, Vol. 83, No. 5, 2008. Abstract and document download.
 

Barzun on Elitism

As one who has been greatly influenced by the writings of conservative historian, Jacques Barzun — especially his warnings against “the menace of the untaught — the menace to themselves and to us” — it seems appropriate here to mention a few of his observations about America’s elites. . . .
—Walter C. Uhler, Allegations of “Elitism” Also Brought Down America’s Founding Fathers

 

Revd John P Richardson

I have just finished reading Jacques Barzun’s monumental From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, and find myself with mixed feelings of triumph and despair.

— The Ugley Vicar, On Finishing Barzun’s From Dawn to Decadence

 

Berlioz? Encore!

By Peter Bloom in From Beyond the Stave: The Boydell & Brewer Music Blog

 

Favorite Barzun Quotations: Eric Morse

Favorite Barzun Quotations

See also Eric Robert Morse.
 

Flying Bibliography You Tubed

David Greenberg, Historian of Presidents and Politics, Receives Hiett Prize

According to the article,

Judges for the 2008 Hiett Prize were Robert Hollander, professor emeritus of European literature at Princeton University; Clayborne Carson, professor of American history at Stanford University; and Jacques Barzun, professor emeritus of history at Columbia University.

David Greenberg’s Homepage