The Essay

Sep 19 2024 1098 ep. 31.4k
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Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

  Society & Culture
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Chorus girls in Paris

Sep 19 2024 13 mins  
"Les petites girls Anglaises" was the nickname given by a French journalist to the elaborately costumed and rhythmic Tiller Girls troupe. Adjoa Osei is a research fellow at the University of Cambridge and a former performer herself, and she's been exploring the complexities involved in being a dancing girl in 1930s Paris, appearing on stage alongside the likes of Josephine Baker an

Esther Inglis's musical self portraits

Sep 19 2024 13 mins  
1574, and a baby girl on board a ship fleeing from France, arrives in London. Esther Inglis went on to become a successful Tudor bookmaker and artist and Eleanor Chan argues that the inclusion of psalm music in the self portraits created by Inglis is a coded way of symbolising belonging at a time of religious strife. The essay draws on research done by New Generation Thinker Eleano

The Star-Spangled Banner, Jacobins and Abolitionists

Sep 19 2024 13 mins  
"Millons be Free" is a Jacobin song which originally celebrated the idea of the French Revolution, whose tune became the American national anthem. Oskar Jensen sings us the melody and tells us a story involving Alexander Hamilton, the advocate of women's rights Mary Wollstonecraft, Haydn and Hummel at a drinking society, a Liverpool lawyer William Roscoe and William Pirsson, a Chel

Tudor music and politics

Sep 19 2024 13 mins  
How musician Robert Hales and a witty song helped Robert Cecil, Elizabeth I's counsellor, win back the Queen's favour. Documents show us that Cecil supported many musicians, paid for a full-time consort, and had to temporarily dismiss one player for "lewdness". New Generation Thinker Christina Faraday tells the story and explores what we know about the role of music at the Tudor co

Teresa del Riego's suffrage anthem

Sep 19 2024 13 mins  
Teresa del Riego's work was a staple of early Prom seasons but the anthem she premiered for the suffrage movement in 1911, at the Criterion restaurant Piccadilly Circus, which had 1,000 copies of the song distributed around the country, has not been heard recently. Naomi Paxton shares her research into the compositions of del Riego (1876-1968) and the music making of the suffrage c

Don't You Think We're Forever

Jul 05 2024 13 mins  
In the depths of lockdown during 2020 multi-award winning musician Karine Polwart offered to play a private gig for neighbour and local legend Al Beck just weeks before he would die from cancer.The resulting correspondence became an unexpectedly rewarding collaboration as they shared their love of music through Al's choice of songs. In this final essay recounts the night of "Beckst

Couldn't Love You More

Jul 04 2024 12 mins  
In the depths of lockdown during 2020 multi-award winning musician Karine Polwart offered to play a private gig for neighbour and local legend Al Beck just weeks before he would die from cancer.The resulting correspondence became an unexpectedly rewarding collaboration as they shared their love of music through Al's choice of songs. As the evening of the gig approaches Karine begin

Banks of Sicily

Jul 03 2024 13 mins  
In the depths of lockdown during 2020 multi-award-winning musician Karine Polwart offered to play a private gig for neighbour and local legend Al Beck just weeks before he would die from cancer.The resulting correspondence became an unexpectedly rewarding collaboration as they shared their love of music through Al's choice of songs. In this essay Karine reflects on the strange purp

Time Has Told Me

Jul 02 2024 12 mins  
In the depths of lockdown during 2020 multi-award winning musician Karine Polwart offered to play a private gig for neighbour and local legend Al Beck just weeks before he would die from cancer.The resulting correspondence became an unexpectedly rewarding collaboration as they shared their love of music through Al's choice of songs. In this essay Karine considers the power of song

How Happy I Am

Jul 01 2024 12 mins  
The multi-award-winning folksinger, songwriter and storyteller, Karine Polwart, crafts an elegy in song for Al Beck, a local legend of rural East Lothian. The songs - were Al's choices for ‘Beckstival' a back garden celebration co-created in the depth of lockdown during June 2020, just weeks before Al's death from cancer. The music ranged from 60s psychedelia and pop classics to