WHAT WE’VE LEARNT

● Irving Berlin, the writer of White Christmas (1937), among hundreds of still-classic songs, rarely celebrated Christmas. His baby son, Irving Jr, died on Christmas Day, 1928.

● The very first music publisher to set up on Manhattan’s storied Tin Pan Alley were M. Witmark & Sons in 1893. Seventy years later they signed up a promising young songwriter called Robert Zimmerman.

● The gramophone and radio set were instrumental in interesting men in popular music. Before that, women drove music appreciation as amateur players and as active listeners (in 1922, 75 per cent of American concert goers were still female).