Category: books and articles

What is “American Style” in music?

Several months ago, my friend, Ronald Barron, with whom I shared 22 years as a member of the trombone section of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, posed a question to me:

What is “American Style” in music?

Ron had been thinking about this himself and gave a presentation on the subject at the International Trombone Festival in Valencia, Spain, in 2015. Since then, I’ve continued to think about his question, and the answer that I gave to Ron at that time.

Earlier this week, I was in the radio studios of Central Sound at Arizona PBS, where I regularly go to be the voice of the radio program, Arizona Encore! that is broadcast locally on KBAQ (KBACH) 89.5 and can also be heard anywhere in the world on the KBAQ website at 7:00 pm on Tuesdays and on demand with the Central Sound at Arizona PBS mobile app. In addition to voicing programs, I also write scripts for Arizona Encore! and another program that Central Sound produces, ASU in Concert.

While writing a script for an Arizona Encore! show that included Antonin Dvořák’s “American” String Quartet, Op. 12 in F major, Op. 96, Ron’s question came to mind again. I pulled out the comments I wrote when he first posed the question and thought that this would be a good time to turn them into a short article to provoke thought and discussion. I think anyone who lives in the United States would answer this question in their own way. But here’s what I think.

• • •

What is “American Style” in Music?

Douglas Yeo

The native people who settled and lived in what we call the United States of America have virtually no voice in today’s broad American cultural conversation. This is highly regrettable, because any discussion of an American Style – whether in music, painting, literature or any of those disciplines that we call “the arts” – has been influenced by them. When talking about American Style – and for the sake of this discussion, I am confining my comments to American Style in music – we must remember that their contributions were fundamental in shaping the great “melting pot” (to use the over-used word) of influences that came to shores to settle in the United States.

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The African American spiritual, “The Old Ship of Zion,” as published in Slave Songs of the United States, published in New York by A. Simpson & Co. in 1867.

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The Puritans (from Boston, England, by way of the Netherlands and Plymouth, England), Roman Catholics (from Spain and Portugal), and traders (from the Netherlands and France) who were among the first European explorers of America brought their religious influences to what we today call the mid-Atlantic and New England states. English Psalm tunes and Italian-influenced Spanish plainchant was heard mixed with the folk music of the motherlands and rhythms and chants of America’s native people. In time, the new colonies – occupied by England, Holland and Spain and, to some extent, France – developed their own form of folk song born out of a newly found freedom of expression. America was a vast place even before its West was discovered anew by Europeans, and the rural, agrarian life brought with it a sense of space, and distance from forces that dictated “proper” style. This mélange of ethnic groups was broadened even more with the introduction of the horrific slave trade. Denominational and non-conformist/free church musical traditions from Europe were influenced by African and West Indian rhythmical expressions, and rather than exploding into the musical equivalent of the destruction of the Tower of Babel, they coalesced around a word that I believe most defines the American musical style:

Optimism.

Whether the music of spirituals, folk music of Appalachia, shaped note music of the South, honky-tonk and saloon music of the West, cakewalk and ragtime of Louisiana, hymnody of the Mormon trail, gospel songs of white churches or what became jazz, it all had one theme: despite its considerable challenges and many problems, America was a good place to live, it was good to be here, and there was more good ahead.

So while the classical and popular music of young, immigrant America was influenced both by the people who had roamed the land for centuries and those who had just arrived, the American sense of optimism – of “can do,” of the foray into the great unknown, of the pioneer spirit, of a gold rush that could (but would not but to a few) make any man rich, of “Happy Days are Here Again,” of the race to the moon – imprinted this place with a musical expression that was positive and looking forward. Even a great composer like Antonin Dvořák, who came to New York in 1892 and wrote music that was infused with an intangible, bright and optimistic quality, realized that he could not have written his “New World” Symphony or “American” String Quartet, in his own words, “‘just so’ if I hadn’t seen America.”

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James Reese Europe leads the 369^th Infantry Harlem Hellfighters Band in France, 1918.

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Of course, by the end of the long nineteenth century – roughly the time from 1776 (the writing of the American Declaration of Independence and all that it brought to the colonial powers who had conquered the land) to 1918 (the end of the First World War, the “war to end all wars” which, of course, it was not), the optimism began to ebb. Post-war ebullience was tempered by the loss of more than of a generation of young men from England, France, and Germany, and many from the United States. The Native people who had once roamed the land had been rounded up and confined to reservations. The promise of true emancipation for the descendants of slaves gave way to Jim Crow. The economic boom of the 1920s paved the way to the Great Depression of the 1930s. A second World War consumed western civilization for nearly another decade, and all of the good intentions of the League of Nations and United Nations could not tame the greedy and selfish appetites of forces that were political, national and religious, whether the Ku Klux Klan, communism or radical Islamic-facism. The optimism gave way to cynicism, to forms of rebellion. The work of the second Viennese School – with its abandonment of 18th century tonal harmony that led music to more and more reflect the chaos and ugliness of the times – even found its way into popular music. American composers like Aaron Copland, who in the middle of the 20th century seemed very much to define the American Style’s sense of space and optimism, traveled the road of the European serialists, not wanting to be out of step with the relentless rush of modernity, seeing if they could find a new voice that was both relevant and honest. Some succeeded better than others, yet there always seemed to be a pull back to the center of the American thought ethos, a desire not to be wholly desperate but rather hopeful even in the midst of what Paul Hindemith called, “confusion, rush and noise” (The Posthorn).

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“The Moravian Easter at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,” Harper’s Weekly, Vol. XXXII, No. 1632, March 31, 1888, pages 228-229.

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For the trombone, the staid harmonies of Moravian chorales – by which the trombone was introduced to American shores – gave way to ragtime and jazz. The world found Arthur Pryor’s eye-popping trombone virtuosity to be nothing short of stunning, while rags full of trombone glissandos – what came to be known as “trombone smears” – were found on band programs around the country. As jazz found its legs and kept growing out of the clothes of its African, West Indian, and European roots, styles like be-bop brought the joyful exuberance of Frank Rosolino and J.J. Johnson, whose creative and enthusiastic music and music making belied the dark demons that ultimately led them to point a barrel of a gun at their heads. And pull the trigger. For every trombone concerto by someone like Christopher Rouse – dark, brooding, introspective, even hopeless – there were two or three by composers like Eric Ewazen, who forsook his long exploration down the tunnel of serialism only to come out wholly embracing 18th century tonality and a new Romanticism with a renewed sense of joie de vivre, with a relentlessly syncopated, rhythmic drive, and expansive melodies that seemed to point one to the high peaks and majestic canyons of the great American west.

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Sierra Estrella (Komatk Doag), Arizona. View from Gila Crossing, the birthplace of Russell Moore. Photo by Douglas Yeo.

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As an American who celebrates his 62^nd year of life and 53^rd year of playing the trombone in 2017, I find myself more and more attracted to – Hindemith, again – “the lasting, calm and meaningful.” Having grown up and worked in the great population centers of the East and Midwest – childhood in New York City, college in Chicago, more college in New York City, and orchestral careers in Baltimore and Boston – I have returned to the west. Having been born in California in the final days of my father’s service in the U.S. Army during the Korean Conflict – a still unresolved war that became emblematic of the conflicts of the second half of the 20^th century and beyond – I now live in Arizona, where the natural beauty and sense of space has affected my artistic temperament in significant ways. From my front porch where at night it is so dark I can see the Milky Way with my naked eye – in the foothills of the Estrella Mountains (that is their Spanish name; the Native Americans who were here long before them called them Komatk Doag), with silhouettes of saguaro cacti on the horizon in every direction – I very much feel like the 19^th century American explorers Lewis and Clark and their Corps of Discovery. Like them, I no longer know what to expect around every turn as I did while in my comfort zone in the East. Now, my artistic personality is informed by influences overlooked, forgotten, abandoned and tamped down in the mad rush to settle the continent – the voices of the Native peoples. Their pottery and basketry informs the artistic ethos of our home. I’ve recently been involved in a major research project on Russell “Big Chief” Moore, a member of the Akimel O’odham tribe who in 1912 – the year Arizona became the 48^th state in the Union – was born just over the mountains from my home, and went on to be one of America’s great jazz trombonists. A bison skull, a reminder of what the clash of old and new societies nearly brought to extinction, overlooks our patio. Two racks of shed elk antlers on display in my living room and music studio remind me that contrary to the dominant thought that I found so easy to embrace in the fast-paced East, I am not the biggest and strongest thing around. Most of all, though, I am in a place where quiet is easy to find, where I can, within minutes, be where I cannot see another indication of modernity as far as my eyes can see.

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“Tribute to “Big Chief” Russell Moore,” The Mississippi Rag, Vo. XI, No. 3. Photo by Kathy Gardner

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This, for me, is America: bold, beautiful, ever changing, positive, optimistic, peaceful. These American values are ever before me, and remind me that even though these noble aspirations are not always to be found easily – there is much work to do in this imperfect, fallen world – the challenges faced in desiring them cannot keep me from pursuing them relentlessly. It is these qualities, in a season of life where I no longer need to play any music I do not wish to play, where I choose to put aside the music that tries to reflect the confusion of our present age in favor of music that celebrates the purity of what I wish it to be. I stand with James Reese Europe and his 369^th Infantry Harlem Hellfighters Band, Russell Moore and his Pima people, with Aaron Copland and his vision of Appalachian Spring, Eric Ewazen and his Pastorale, and even Dvořák, whose “American” string quartet, composed in Iowa, reflects his understanding that American Style had to reflect something of the history and greatness of the land, its people, and their struggle.
In this, I am an American musician who embraces what I believe is the greatest informer of American Style in music: Optimism.

A new book – The One Hundred: Essential Works for the Symphonic Bass Trombonist

Over the last year and a half, I have been at work every day on a new book that has actually taken me 40 years to write. I’m very pleased that The One Hundred: Essential Works for the Symphonic Bass Trombonist is now at the printer and available for pre-order; copies will be shipped in March.

I took my first professional symphony orchestra audition in 1977, the year after I graduated from Wheaton College. That audition was for the Minnesota Orchestra. I didn’t win; the audition was won by Max Bonecutter, although I was one of four players in the final round and got cut at the same time as Charles Vernon, bass trombonist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra who at the time was bass trombonist of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. That was the beginning of a process that eventually brought me to the Boston Symphony in 1985. Over these many decades, I have been engaged in studying the orchestral literature and learning all I could from colleagues, conductors, authors and many others. I brought the full orchestra score to most works to rehearsals, I took notes about how conductors were handling certain passages, and I noted when there were misprints and mistakes in my part. I have hundreds of scores, books and facsimile editions in my personal library and I have gotten great pleasure from studying them over and over again.

After having played the standard orchestral repertoire many times over, served on dozens of audition committees and taught hundreds of lessons in this music, I was glad that eighteen months ago, Wesley Jacobs, owner of Encore Music Publishers, asked me if I would like to write an annotated orchestral excerpt book for bass trombone.

I was delighted to be asked to undertake this huge project, and to have a book stand alongside the two other important annotated orchestral excerpt books in The One Hundred series: The One Hundred: Essential Works for the Symphonic Tenor Trombonist (by Megumi Kanda, principal trombonist of the Milwaukee Symphony) and The One Hundred: Essential Works for the Symphonic Tubist (by Wesley Jacobs, retired tubist of the Detroit Symphony).

In an effort to write the most comprehensive book on the subject of bass trombone orchestral repertoire preparation, I collected as many sources as I could to inform my scholarship. Take, for instance, the well-known passage from the fourth movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. Below you can see the first page of this important excerpt as printed in my new book (FYI, the watermark, 2021, is the Encore Music Publishers catalog number; this image is from the final PDF proof of the book):

I’m sure the music looks mostly familiar to those who have played this part. But I did not simply duplicate what I have seen in various editions of the symphony. Below you can see all of the sources that I consulted to inform both my commentary and my presentation of Beethoven’s music:

I used two different editions of the full orchestra score, two editions of the bass trombone part, two books about Beethoven, a book about the Ninth Symphony, a critical commentary about the Ninth Symphony and a facsimile of Beethoven’s manuscript to the piece. All of these sources, in addition to my own performance notes that I had taken during my dozens of performances of this great work, all were utilized as I put together this single page in my book. I have corrected some mistakes that have appeared in earlier printings of this music, and provided some insight into both how I approach playing this music and how conductors have led it during rehearsals and performances as well. I endeavored to leave no stone unturned and provide readers with the best, most accurate information to help them in their preparation.

While our aim was to have a book that contained 100 works, there are actually 109 works in my book. Among those works that we wanted to include were 30 that are currently under copyright, for which we needed to obtain a license and pay royalties to copyright holders in order to reproduce them in the book. We anticipated that some of the copyright holders might not give us permission to reproduce so I came up with a list of 110 works to include in case we came up short with copyrighted works. We were very pleased that 29 of the 30 copyright holders graciously agreed to license us. This left us with more works than we had originally intended but we decided to include the additional nine works over the intended 100; I have a feeling nobody will complain! The result? A book with 360 excerpts from 109 works by 49 composers.

If you are interested in more information about this new book or would like to order a copy, there are three ways you can do this:

The website of Encore Music Publishers will lead you to a page about the book; it is featured on the website’s first page. While there, have a look at Encore Music Publisher’s many other fine publications, including the edition of the Arban Complete Method for trombone and euphonium by Joseph Alessi and Brian Bowman, and the Complete Vocalises by Marco Bordogni edited by Michael Mulcahy.

Encore Music Publishers has created a website for the three books in The One Hundred series. This is a convenient gateway to information about all three books in the series, for tenor trombone, bass trombone and tuba.

I have put a page on my own website devoted to The One Hundred. There you can get a fuller account of how this book came to be, and you can also download a free PDF with 10 sample pages from the book so you can see the front and back covers, table of contents, preface, and four sample pages.

I want to thank Wesley Jacobs, owner of Encore Music Publishers, for working with me so I could – at last – write this book. It has been a labor of love, something I have wanted to do for a very long time. It is very, very satisfying to know that soon, it will be in the hands of students and players around the world.

Cliff Barrows (1923-2016): A man of song. And the trombone.

by Douglas Yeo (November 16, 2016)

Clifford “Cliff” Barrows, long-time song leader for evangelist Billy Graham, died yesterday at the age of 93. He was part of a trio – along with Graham and singer George Beverly Shea – who defined large-scale Christian evangelism in the second half of the twentieth century. Graham, Shea and Barrows preached, sang and led singing before millions of people since they first worked together in 1946. The photo above shows Cliff Barrows leading singing at the 1946 Youth for Christ meeting in Seattle, Washington.

The newspapers today are full of tributes to Cliff Barrows and a good summary of his life and career is found in his obituary in the Charlotte (North Carolina) Observer. This was a Godly man who changed lives in many ways and he is more than deserving of all of the warm remembrances that are being written about him today.

But several years ago, I learned about a side of Cliff Barrows that most people had either not ever known about or had long forgotten: he played the trombone.

I first learned that Cliff Barrows played trombone while touring the Billy Graham Center Museum at my undergraduate alma mater, Wheaton College (Illinois). As I came around a corner, I saw photographs of two men that were holding trombones: Homer Rodeheaver (I had never heard of him before) and Cliff Barrows (I didn’t know he had played trombone). I learned quickly that Rodeheaver was the trombone-playing song leader for evangelist Billy Sunday in the first third of the 20th century. And this realization – that the two most influential Christian evangelists of the 20th century were both named “Billy” and both had song leaders that played the trombone – sent me running to learn more.

I turned my attention to Rodeheaver, a man who was a household name for decades but today has been largely forgotten. Here was a man who played the trombone for over 100 million people; his tremendous influence as a trombonist is incalculable. “Surely,” I thought, “there must be a story in all of this.” And indeed there was. It first led to my writing an article, “Homer Rodeheaver: Reverend Trombone” that was published in the Historic Brass Society Journal earlier this year. And, happily, it has now led to my co-authoring a book about Rodeheaver for University of Illinois Press with my friend, Kevin Mungons. We are, at this moment, deep into the process of writing the book and when it appears in a few years, it will be accompanied by a two-CD set of recordings of Rodeheaver singing, speaking and playing trombone. More on this in time! But while doing research about Rodeheaver at the Billy Graham Center Archives and at Grace College in Winona Lake, Indiana (where Billy Sunday and Rodeheaver had their homes and archives for both Sunday and Rodeheaver are found) and the Winona History Center, photos of Cliff Barrows kept popping up. I needed to know more.

As I researched Cliff Barrows, I learned that he had played trombone while growing up in Ceres, California. With his first wife, Billie (shown above, with Cliff Barrows and Billy Graham around 1946), Barrows worked with evangelist Jack Shuler. The Statesville (North Carolina) Record & Landmark newspaper had this to say about Cliff Barrows at one of Shuler’s meetings in an article from June 26, 1945:

The Barrows’ specialize in piano and trombone arrangements, and their duets and solos have made them friends of everyone who has attended their performances. It was ventured by one who attended the great Billy Sunday campaigns that Mr. Barrows is the equal of Homer Rodeheaver, song leader for the late evangelist, so skillfully does he lead the large crowds in congregational singing of hymns and choruses. Billie Barrows, who, by the way, has been Cliff’s wife for just 13 days, has thrilled young and old with her renditions of favorite songs at the piano.

The mentioning of Cliff Barrows in the same sentence with Homer Rodeheaver was no accident. On April 1, 2014, I interviewed Cliff Barrows and he spoke about Rodeheaver’s influence on his life and ministry:

Homer Rodeheaver was a most wonderful man. He had a way of using a crowd to prepare them for Billy [Sunday] and Billy would get anxious; he’d want to get up and start to preach and Homer would turn around and say, “They ain’t ready yet.” So he’d pick up his trombone and say, “This is a Methodist trombone, it slips and slides all over the place.” . . . I never met a more gracious man. We had him come to every [Billy Graham] Crusade when he was alive until he died in 1955 and I went to his funeral. They asked me to stand by his casket at the piano at [his home at] Rainbow Point [in Winona Lake, Indiana] and lead some of his favorite songs. And I did. I led “Beyond the sunset, O blissful morning…”

Unfortunately, there are no known recordings of Cliff Barrows playing the trombone. But there is a brief moment where he is seen on film with the trombone in his hands. The screenshot above is from a video of Cliff Barrows playing the trombone at the 1949 Christ for Greater Los Angeles Billy Graham Crusade. You’ll find the footage of Barrows at around 5:00 in the video (click on the link in the text above to view the complete film).

In my conversation with Cliff Barrows, his affection for the trombone was palpable. By that time, he had not played the trombone in many years. After the 1953 London Billy Graham Crusade, Graham and Barrows began making changes in their manner of presenting the Christian Gospel, creating their own style after having been compared so frequently to Sunday and Rodeheaver. By 1957, he had put the trombone down. Still, during our interview, he told me that he was holding a trombone in his lap that had been given to him by the 1950 Atlanta Billy Graham Crusade Choir, on which was inscribed the verse from Psalm 98:1: Sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things; his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him. As we spoke at that moment, Cliff Barrows was nearly blind and near the end of his life, yet when we talked about the trombone, he wanted it in his hands. Of Rodeheaver and the trombone, Cliff Barrows said, “Well, they are two of my best friends.”

Cliff Barrows, like Homer Rodeheaver before him, found that the trombone was an effective tool in leading song for large groups of people. The photo above, from the 1946-1947 Youth for Christ meetings in England, show the young Billie Barrows, Billy Graham and Cliff Barrows standing out with their exuberant, youthful energy. In our interview, Cliff Barrows talked about how he used the trombone to lead singing:

I would play with the choir and bring the downbeat with my horn and when I would hold a long note, I’d hold it out with them and the horn was just a part of me. I felt so natural with it hanging on my arm.

Of all of the photographs I have seen of Cliff Barrows, it is the one above, taken at the 1954 Billy Graham Crusade at the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, Finland, that I like the best. Look at the tens of thousands of people sitting in the stadium. The infield is empty. And on the platform is Cliff Barrows, playing his trombone accompanied by an upright piano (see the enlargement, below). Two people playing a hymn tune. They are minuscule and nearly lost in the enormity of the crowd. But when a trombone was in his hand, Cliff Barrows knew how to make it sing.

When my interview with Cliff Barrows was drawing to a close, I thanked him for his time and insights. But this humble man turned it around on me, and said,

You’re welcome, Brother Yeo. God bless you brother. Thank you for letting me visit with you.

And with that, two trombone players named Cliff Barrows and Douglas Yeo hung up the phone. Today, as I reflect on the life and ministry of Cliff Barrows, I am so grateful my life intersected with his for a brief moment, where our shared love of Jesus Christ, music and the trombone came together. It was Homer Rodeheaver who led me to Cliff Barrows, the same Homer Rodeheaver who was such an encouragement when Cliff Barrows was just beginning his ministry with Billy Graham. And like Rodeheaver, shown below with Billy Sunday (in a white suit standing behind Rodeheaver) at Winona Lake, Indiana in 1931, Cliff Barrows used the trombone as a tool for leading singing and for bringing the Good News of Jesus Christ to millions of people. It’s something I’ll be doing this Sunday when, with my wife at the piano, I pick up my trombone and play the great song by George Beverly Shea and Rhea Miller, I’d Rather Have Jesus Than Silver or Gold as the offertory in our church’s Sunday morning service. At that moment, I certainly will be thanking God for the life, ministry and influence of Cliff Barrows, a man of song. And the trombone.

[With thanks to the Billy Graham Center Archives and Winona History Center and Grace College for the photos that accompany this post.]

Words matter

By Douglas Yeo (August 29, 2016; updated December 27, 2023)

I love to read and write. My father was Chairman of our local public library when I was a young boy and I cannot recall a time in my life when a book was fewer than a few feet away from me. Over the years, I have published many articles and book chapters, and am at work at this time on three books for major publishers – Oxford University Press, University of Illinois Press, and Encore Music Publishers. I am a stickler for grammar and punctuation and I take care to craft sentences that clearly express my thoughts.

One of my favorite quotations (note: it is not a quote, it is a quotation) about the importance of words is from Duke Ellington, from a 1944 article about him in The New Yorker magazine. Ellington said:

You can say anything you want on the trombone, but you gotta be careful with words.

Indeed. Words matter. Words can express the most tender emotions of the human soul and words can also start wars. We need to be careful with words.

I have long been familiar with a quotation by Joseph Pulitzer, the newspaper magnate whose name is associated with the Pulitzer Prizes for excellent writing. The quotation is in the image above, taken from the Pulitzer Prize website. It’s a superb quotation that is a real inspiration to writers. But this quotation has a problem. A big problem.

Pulitzer didn’t say it.

I wanted to use this quotation in a book that I’m writing so I decided to track down its source (note: that’s its, not it’s). This proved difficult to do. If you Google the quotation, you will find it reproduced on countless websites. But never with a citation. And every author knows you need a citation if you’re going to quote something.

After a long search, a good friend of mine located the source. It is in Alleyne Ireland’s 1915 book, Joseph Pulitzer: Reminiscences of a Secretary. It is here that Pulitzer’s famous quotation is found, on pages 68-69:

And when you read it, you see a very big problem.

Compare the popularized version of the quotation with the actual quotation:

Put it before them briefly so they will read it, clearly so they will appreciate it, picturesquely so they will remember it and, above all, accurately so they will be guided by its light. [Popularized version]

…put it before them briefly so that they will read it, clearly so that they will understand it, forcibly so that they will appreciate it, picturesquely so that they will remember it, and, above all, accurately so that they may be wisely guided by its light. [Original version]

What happened? Two phrases of the original got conflated into one phrase; what originally was “clearly so that they will understand it, forcibly so that they will appreciate it” became “clearly so they will appreciate it.” “That” and “so” got removed from all phrases. But there is more. “Wisely guided by its light” became “guided by its light.” And what is IT, the subject of the whole quotation? IT is not identified in the popularized version. But in the original, IT is identified. IT is “the truth.” Here’s the full quotation with its important subject now in place:

…it’s my duty to see that they get the truth; but that’s not enough, I’ve got to put it before them briefly so that they will read it, clearly so that they will understand it, forcibly so that they will appreciate it, picturesquely so that they will remember it, and, above all, accurately so that they may be wisely guided by its light.

The irony of the mangling of this quotation is obvious. Here are the words of a man that have been twisted to to give meaning that he didn’t intend and to NOT give meaning that he DID intend. And the whole point of the quotation, “above all” as Pulitzer said, is that the truth is given to people “accurately.” In this popularized version of Pulitzer’s words, accuracy has been thrown out the window. Even the Pulitzer Prize website can’t get the words of its famous benefactor right. What a shame.

Words have meaning. Words matter.

Here is an update to this article (December 27, 2023)

I wrote the above article about the mangling of Joseph Pulitzer’s words on the Pulitzer Prize website in 2016. For several months after I wrote my article, I checked in on the Pulitzer Prize website to see if they happened to update Pulitzer’s words. They had not. I wrote to the Pulitzer Prize committee about this error and I never heard back from them. So I went on to other things. Then, this morning, this all came to my mind again, I had another look and, lo and behold, the Pulitzer Prize website has the quotation reproduced correctly. Good on them! I don’t know when they made the change and I’m not going to take credit for the change but. . .