José Clavijo y Fajardo’s satirical allegory, El tribunal de las damas, certainly fulfils the great Roman satirist Horace’s utili dulci dictum, so prized by Spain’s neoclassicists, on the importance of literature’s being both entertaining and instructive. Its witty representation of the age-old debate about the balance of power between the sexes, in the form of a court-room battle over the intro...

Christmas and music seem to belong together. Corelli’s Christmas Concerto, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio, and the Christmas sections from Handel’s Messiah are an integral part of the public and private soundscapes between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve. They belong to the feast like roasted chestnuts and peppermint sticks. The soothing sound of the Baroque pastoral and the festive splendor of conc...