Arts & Letters – Spirituality

The Pavane in F-sharp minor, opus number 50, was a composition for orchestra and optional chorus written by the French composer Gabriel Fauré in 1887.

In early 20th-century St. Louis, Pearl Curran claimed to have conjured a long-dead New England puritan named Patience Worth through a Ouija board. Although mostly unknown today, the resulting books, poems, and plays that Worth “dictated” to Curran earned great praise at the time. Ed Simon investigates the curious and nearly forgotten literary fruits of a “ghost” and her ghostwriter. Many moons ago I lived. Again I come. Patience Worth...

Marking anniversaries of the birth and death of historic figures, particularly in music, is somewhat akin to commemorating annually the date of death of family members. It is never quite clear whether we are struggling to remember those to whom we were once close as we pursue our lives without them, all in an effort to assuage the guilt that comes with the natural tendency to forget, or whether we...

A researcher says he has uncovered the precise location where the artist painted “Tree Roots,” thought to be the last piece he worked on the day he suffered a fatal gunshot wound. AMSTERDAM — One hundred and thirty years ago, Vincent van Gogh awoke in his room at an inn in Auvers-sur-Oise, France, and went out, as he usually did, with a canvas to paint. That night, he returned to...