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…
Posts published by “David Yearsley”
What would Art be without a theory and practice of plunder? It's no accident that the greatest artistic achievements of the Athenians coincided with their…
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…
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…
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.…
It may be that the interest in and affection for life in the old East Germany is a result of the current German “crisis” —…
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…
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…
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…
There is nothing like running into an old friend in an airport to raise the spirits. And there, lurking among the smut in a magazine…
Pandemic Halloween has been gifted a soundtrack: Republican rocker Ted Nugent’s ghoulish and deafening version of the Star-Spangled Banner. There is nothing—not Carl Maria von…