Once again, thanks to Network Radio,

I'm listening to the wizardry of Yo Yo Ma, this time performing a Bach cello suite (No. 3 in C), the same as what, in my humble opinion, Rostropovich and Casals, severally, made such ugly, Romantic hash of:  Yo Yo Ma is (contrarily) purest delight:  effortless, flawless technique of course; but also--in a manner inconceivable to musicians formed in the century between 1850 and 1950--delicately articulate, diamond-etched precision of ornamentation, with no aging-soprano-like wobble or scoop.  Welcome back, Yo Yo!

Yesterday morning, also thanks ¡Thank Allah! to Network Radio, I heard, for the first ever in my life, a concerto grosso (a happy marriage of barococo English and Italian compositional styles if ever I've heard one), by one, heretofore unheard of, Charles Avison (pronounced 'Ay-vi-sun, 1709-1770).  Whom Googling, I discovered a great number of fascinating--nay, utterly riveting--facts about; and about the whole of English life, and, particularly, musical life in the 18th century:

¿Where to begin? 

item:  One knows that London and the Universities at Oxford and Cambridge do not represent the whole of artistic and scholarly life in England.  One has read, for example, a couple of works of great scholarly worth (one in the Cognitive Sciences, one in World History), written by graduates of, and professors at (as I recall), the University of Bristol (though it may have been Sheffield, or Birmingham); which were notable, as much for the curious, occasionally non-standard (seemingly, inadvertently and inappropriately colloquial) diction of their authors, as for their impeccable research and learning: rather like, though not as extreme as, the ghastly jauntiness of J.K. Rowlings' prose, and very much reminiscent of the insufferably class-shadowed speech and manners portrayed in popular English television "comedy."  The Queen, we understand, finds Benny Hill unspeakably funny; we find him simply unspeakable.  One could go on, explaining how it is that, as an American (and, perforce, a Transcendentalist), I loathe and repudiate every suggestion of the "essential humanness" or "objective reality" of Class; including, most particularly, the abject insistence on it to be found in Marxism, neo-Marxism, and Postmodernism--and, curiously, in political "Conservatism."  But for these purposes, let us just note that the Provincialism with which Class is frequently, snobbishly conflated, is in fact a quite distinct phenomenon; and can have more to do with the excellence of local character than with its too-hastily supposed inferiority to national or metropolitan standards of arts and letters.  Mouthful that, but it had to be said.