Merry Company on a Terrace, by Jan Steen, c. 1670. © The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1958.
VIEW:
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.
All of the great musicians have borrowed from the songs of the common people.
—Antonín Dvořák, 1893