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J. S. Bach: Jesu, meine Freude
Jesu, meine Freude. Jesus, my Joy. Johann Sebastian Bach. It’s fair to say that classical musicians agree that Bach at the very top of creative geniuses. His music seems in a class by itself. And he wrote lots and lots of music. It seemed to just pour out of him. I’m amazed at how personal his music sounds to me. It’s full of emotional feeling, belief, hope, and tragedy. On a snowy day like this, when I hope to stay in, listening to Bach is like having a private religious ceremony. This is a church I actually want to attend.
Bohemian Rhapsody performed by Charles Yang
think most NYFOS folks know Charles Yang by now. He’s our young super star violinist and more recently, he’s carving out an important career as a songwriter and vocalist with an amazing group of three string players (two violins and bass) called Time For Three. They have been playing to much larger audiences than our normal NYFOS crowd (stadiums), and their music is getting deeper, better, and more beautiful every time I hear it.
Johnny Green: You Came To Me Out Of Nowhere
I met Johnny Green in the 1980s. He was well into his 80s and he was there at BAM for the Gershwin celebration concert and TV show to teach us about Gershwin, and about how his big band arrangements went. He took the band through a few numbers and what I most remembered was the sound he got out of them. “This should sound like velvet” he said. We all know velvet doesn’t make a sound, but of course every sax player instantly knew what to do, and they got breathy with their reeds, and the trumpets and trombones fell right in.
Rachel Taylor Brown: December
I live near the East River in New York City. It gives me great pleasure to walk over to the park along its banks and watch the slow winter water flow out to the Atlantic Ocean, to see the reflections of the city lights on the surface. Those lights will have to do: in the city I never really see stars.
Fr. Jean de Brébeuf, SJ: The Huron Carol
None of us will ever know the fullness of our impact on the lives of others. Similarly, it would be impossible for any one of us to trace all the ways that other people have transformed us. Lives may be lived in eras, but are experienced one at a time.
Deanna Witkowski: Kings of Orient
I have always loved the old bible story about the three wise men following a star that leads them to a humble manger and the baby inside of it, trusting in wisdom of the universe, written in the language of the stars, to lead them to something far beyond anything they would ever expect. You can really imagine how much improvising, and how much trust, would be needed to start a journey like that, and believe that their humble destination was really what they had been looking for.
Kontakion of the Mother of God sung by Cappella Romana
This season I am thinking a lot about the nature of time—how the evening seems to fall so soon (is it always so dark so early in the middle of December?), how the days can feel so long and yet the weeks so short.
Y La Bamba: Winter Skin
It feels to me that 2017 has been a year of division and anxiety. There is a list of hurts as far as the eye can see across our beautiful nation, so many conflicting identities seemingly held together in name only. Living into this tension is draining, and I rely on the camaraderie of music. Sometimes I look for songs that serve as fuel, propelling me to do all the good I can with what I have. But sometimes I just want—just need—a little solace, a way to acknowledge the world as it is and still offer hope for a better tomorrow.
Jerry Herman: Dancing
The last time I saw Hello, Dolly! I was twelve years old, and Carol Channing played Dolly. On the way out of the theater—no, it must have been later, at Sam Goody’s where its $4.95 price tag would have come down a whole dollar—my mother bought the original cast album for us. Well, for me. I was the obsessive music-listener in the house. I soon knew all the songs by heart.
John Corigliano: Forever Young
I first met John Corigliano 41 years ago over dinner at a restaurant in Greenwich Village. I was a rather shy young guy and I was out with some very confident people, all of whom friends of some standing. all of them about fifteen years my senior. I’m not sure I made much of an impression that night.
William Bolcom: Soneto de la dulce queja
I’ve spent the fall with the music of William Bolcom and John Corigliano, who are the leading men in my Juilliard concert this January. They are each about to turn 80 next year, which strikes me as impossible. How could two such fiery renegades be octogenarians?
Jules Massenet: Dis-moi que je suis belle
These days I find that I don’t venture out much to hear the standard operas at the Met. For one thing, I’ve been familiar with them since my pre-teen years, and their music is now so familiar to me that they have become like mantras or prayers, part of my ongoing inner soundtrack.
O hoary nooit (“O Holy Night”), sung by Joan Sutherland
This week I thought I’d share some of the music that has filled my recent weeks. It is the Christmas season and we’re about to put up our traditional tree, a present we received at the end of the last century from Jim’s brother and sister. They had each been assigned to one of us in their family’s Christmas lottery, and decided to pool their resources and go in on a gift together.
Eartha Kitt: I wanna be evil
I was originally enticed by Eartha Kitt’s quirks and unmistakable timbre, but the more I read and listen, the more I recognize her immense intelligence and depth of interpretation. She was an accomplished polyglot and formidable actress, and though categorized as a “pop” artist in her day, her erudition and singularity render her unrecognizable from most of today’s pop singers.
Jula de Palma & Lelio Luttazzi: Mi piace
This gem of classic Italian jazz came to me from a dear conductor friend in Rome. (He specializes in baroque repertoire, but no matter.) I’ve had trouble finding sheet music for it, or any information at all really, but its lulling, languid mood never fails to enchant. Jula de Palma is an Italian singer whose early career was closely associated with Lelio Luttazzi, a performer and composer of many stripes who made a decades-long career in Italian radio and television.