Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City
Peter Pears and Julian Bream perform John Dowland’s “Fine knacks for ladies” and Philip Rosseter’s “What then is love but mourning” on the BBC in 1959:
(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)
“Since the point was raised, it seemed to me that Mrs. Rainier was too good, and that for this reason she might miss the secret English bull’s-eye that can only be hit by guns sighted to a 97 or 98 per cent degree of accuracy. Anything more than that, even if achievable, is dangerous in England, because English people mistrust perfection, regarding it in manners as the stigma of foreigners, just as they suspect it in teeth to be the product of dentistry.”
James Hilton, Random Harvest