There’s too much of a big to-do about the musician Lizzo playing founding father James Madison’s crystal flute. For the record, Lizzo plays it well (twerking aside), but she is absolutely not the first to play it.
I myself heard it played, about 10 paces from where I sat, on Madison’s 250th birthday on March 16, 2001. But I wasn’t special. Several hundred people were there with me, listening as well. The Washington Post reported on it at the time. It was played by Rob Turner, a flute instructor at the University of Virginia. He was so good that I immediately bought the CD he had made of him playing beautiful music on that same flute. I listen to the CD every Christmas. It’s delightful.
Not only that, but NPR reports that a flute instructor (presumably Turner) played the flute on its airwaves that same year. Moreover, there is a record of friends of the Madisons writing Madison’s widow, Dolley, wishing they could return to play it — as if they had played it before.
It would make no sense for Madison to have owned the flute for 23 years before his death while never once listening to anyone play it.
Either way, it’s an exquisitely lovely instrument, and it produces an exquisitely pure and lovely tone. It ought to be played, by specialists, more often, perhaps at least annually. Beautiful flutes, like ingenious constitutions, are meant to be used and celebrated.
