+++UPDATE: Stayin’ alive! How music has fought pandemics for 2,700 years
The Guardian examines how music has long been a part of tradition to fight fear, stretching back through the Black Death to the 7th century BC.
The parallels to the current pandemic are striking. People in Italy, Spain and the wider world have used music to bring their communities together on a truly impressive scale: videos of balcony concerts – in which quarantined musicians perform for other nearby residents – are going viral, and covers of Nessun Dorma, Valerie, Imagine and even a spirited run-through of Lewis Capaldi’s Someone You Loved have emerged. In a poignant echo to the plague of St Charles, one Milanese trumpeter offered his soulful rendition of O Mia Bela Madunina, the city’s hymn to the golden Virgin Mary atop Il Duomo. The UK’s recent Clap for the NHS is another example. In that case, it didn’t matter if you were a musician: pots, pans, hands and shouts were enough.