In 1835 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow hailed music as “the universal language of mankind.” Few would disbelieve him and deny themselves the comfort of the cliché that music has the power to transcend cultural, political, and…
Posts published by “David Yearsley”
It took another Barbarian to deliver the toughest talk to the Vandals and Goths who sacked the American Capitol last week. Whether any from these bearded, fur-clad tribes were listening to Conan the Californian seems…
Christmas is a dangerous time, for it threatens social instability, political disorder, even revolution. At the culmination of the story kings kneel before a helpless baby; the powerful pay tribute to the seemingly powerless. In…
Much has been made of the playlists of the erstwhile presidential contenders. Back in 2016 Trump’s obsession with winning was given voice by Queen’s “We are the Champions,” who have, as the lyrics put it,…
Theodora was Handel’s penultimate oratorio and his least successful. The London premiere came in March of 1750, but the work closed after just three performances. English language sung dramas—oratorios—had enriched Handel in the period from…
Edward Winslow’s Good Newes from New-England published in 1624 in London begins its account in November of 1621. There is no word of the first Thanksgiving. As David Silverman shows in his This Land Is…
I’ve been teaching a music journalism class here at Cornell this semester. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings over the past eleven weeks I’ve joined eight students for an hour-and-a-quarter in a windowless rehearsal room in…
Bach would have been an excellent poll worker, even if in his professional life as a musical functionary he bristled under proto-democratic institutions and civic authority, preferring instead to work for enlightened despots. The musicologist…