After this past Wednesday’s post on a rap song by Little Simz, I started looking for classical music pieces in which the brass section came across as boldly as those in Simz’s song, “Introvert.” I haven’t found one yet, and I feel that speaks to my lack of knowledge of the genre. I’ll keep looking and learning. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, I looked in my digital collection for something to share for “Classical Sunday.” A few pieces by Wolgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) came up. I sometimes associate Mozart with a kind of crazy-making busy-ness that some of his works seem to evoke for me. Yet his sacred music is almost unmatched in its ability to invoke and feed the spirit in such a blissful way. And this is what happened when I stumbled across his “Ave verum corpus.” A version of it happens to be on the same Kiri Te Kanawa album from which I featured a piece two weekends ago. Mozart’s “Ave verum corpus” is a beautifully meditative piece that is, historically, a chant related to the Christian sacrament of communion; feeding the body and soul, as it were.
Today has been a full day with a longer, early morning bike ride in the heavier, cold morning air (1° Celcius or 34°F), then some time at home with my sweety. In the sunny warmth of the mid-afternoon, we took our bikes out for a ride with friends to the outdoor patio of Barn Hammer Brewing, a local brewery and taproom. These friends were away for five weeks, and we had a fun and emotional time reconnecting and sharing. And soon after Sweety and I biked home in the low golden autumn sun, we had two long phone calls with loved ones, then some soup for dinner, and some Netflix (The Chair, though I didn’t really connect with it, despite having featured its preview music some weeks ago).
And with that, I think I’ll just let the music speak for itself…
Now you know a little about why this is My Song of the Day for Today. Thanks for joining me here, and please enjoy.
Here’s the audio of Te Kanawa singing with the St. Paul’s Cathedral Choir, London, England, accompanied by the English Chamber Orchestra with Barry Rose conducting, from the Choir’s YouTube topic channel:
Song of the Day for Today 