Let there be music
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said that music was “to the soul what a water bath is to the body.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow called it “the universal language of mankind,” and T.S. Eliot even suggested, “You are the music while the music lasts.” None of these distinguished Harvard figures made his career as a musician, yet the magic of Orpheus still held powerful sway over them, as it does today over hundreds of students who are part of Harvard’s ever-closer relationship to music. In the University’s earliest days, music was generally confined to singing during chapel services or at official College events. Instruments were largely absent from campus. Then, in the 19th century, a handful of young men created a small group dedicated to “mutual improvement in instrumental music,” along with the “consumption of brandy and cigars as well as the serenading of young ladies.” As a liberal arts college, Harvard trains its students...