The great violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman posted a 1964 video on social media this week in which he is seen at age 18 playing a violin concerto. It’s a striking clip not only for Perlman’s mastery of instrument and nuance but also because he was not playing for aficionados but for a mass audience on prime-time TV. He was on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Fox News columnist David Marcus noted on X, “This is what the average American watched on the country’s top variety show in 1964,” and added elegiacally, “Decline was a choice.”