Merry Company on a Terrace, by Jan Steen, c. 1670. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1958.
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Miscellany
Beware a comet “if it resembles a flute,” Pliny the Elder warned; “it portends something unfavorable related to music.” The Roman author did not offer further particulars.
Music today is nothing more than the art of performing difficult pieces.
—Voltaire, 1759
