classical Archives - Beautiful Song Of The Week

June 24

Week 737: “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” arr. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor

Like many spirituals with roots in the era of slavery in the United States, this…

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March 4

Week 721: “Intermezzo” by Giacomo Puccini

No, it’s not a glitch with your device and you’re not having some kind of…

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February 26

Week 720: “Intermezzo Sinfonico” by Pietro Mascagni

Generally speaking, I’m not really into opera. The last time I featured anything from an…

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December 5

Week 656: “A Spotless Rose” by Herbert Howells

December is the shortest month. Okay, technically, February is the shortest month. It’s just that…

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July 18

Week 636: “Sicut Cervus” by Giovanni da Palestrina

I sang in a church choir as a kid, and this was one of the…

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October 4

Week 595: “Weep, O Mine Eyes” by John Bennet (performed by Attacca Quartet)

Like most things humans do, crying is really weird when you think about it. Why…

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August 9

Week 587: “O Virtus Sapientie Alio Modo” by Stevie Wishart

I’m not too familiar with famous people from the Middle Ages (perhaps you’re not either)…

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April 19

Week 571: “Salve Regina” by Francis Poulenc

We’ve all got our contradictions. I, for example, will diligently rinse out food cans before…

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December 21

Week 554: “In the Bleak Midwinter” by Gustav Holst (arr. Gjeilo)

Up here in the northern half of the world, today is the winter solstice. And…

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November 30

Week 551: “Elegy” by Edward Elgar

It’s pretty unlikely that anyone will build a statue of me when I die, but…

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July 27

Week 533: “Lullaby for String Orchestra” by George Gershwin

George Gershwin was a musical turning point. He was born in 1898, a year after…

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March 9

Week 513: “The Swan” by Camille Saint-Saens

One of Camille Saint-Saens’ best-loved works is his 1886 suite, The Carnival of the Animals.…

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January 13

Week 505: “Qui Tollis” by Antonio Lotti

Here’s an interesting (if slightly morbid) thing I learned recently: the “Birthday Effect.” Since there…

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November 4

Week 495: “Impromptu V” by Jean Sibelius

It’s tempting to look at the lives of composers and turn them into parables. Mozart’s…

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June 10

Week 474: “Solfeggio in C Minor” by CPE Bach (Eugen Cicero cover)

Summing up Bach’s legacy and influence on following generations of composers, Mozart once said, “Bach…

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May 27

Week 472: “Serenade For Clarinet and Strings” by Derek Holman

When I was nine, I joined a church choir. I wasn’t especially religious or prodigiously…

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May 20

Week 471: “Child Falling Asleep” by Robert Schumann

Robert Schumann’s lifelong struggle with mental and physical illness has been written about and analyzed…

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April 8

Week 465: “Spring 1” by Antonio Vivaldi (recomposed by Max Richter and Daniel Hope)

There are three people behind this beautiful and tantalizingly brief piece of music, and two…

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February 4

Week 456: “Une Larme” by Modest Mussorgsky

Of all the human body’s processes, crying has to be one of the weirdest. It…

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January 7

Week 452: “Pilgrim’s Hymn” by Stephen Paulus

Traditionally, a pilgrim is someone who is on a journey to a holy place. But…

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Tag: classical