Isaiah Berlin: Testifying to the reliability of our memories.

                                            

 

When the young and the middle-aged say, as they often do, 

that it is a common illusion of the old that there were better 

singers and performances in the days of their youth, this is not 

always so: gramophone records (and even some memories) do 

not delude. The recorded ensembles towards the end of the 

second act of Figaro, in the scene of parting in the first act of  

Così, or the unmasking of Leporello in Don Giovanni, are 

there to testify to the reliability of our memories.