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Yesterday’s Beautiful Music honored William Shakespeare with music composed for his plays during his lifetime. Today’s Beautiful Music features Benjamin Britten’s opera A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM adapted by Britten and his partner Peter Pears from Shakespeare’s play. This performance is a star-studded classic recording from 1966 with the composer conducting the London Symphony Orchestra, with […]

Happy Birthday, William Shakespeare! At least some people *think* April 23 was The Bard’s birth date in 1564. We know that April 23, 1616 was the date of Shakespeare’s death. As Poetry Month continues, we’re celebrating the musical contributions of Shakespeare and his collaborators who brought to life the music for his plays. Voices of

Claudio Monteverdi was prolific as a composer of madrigals — the poetic songs about love, life, nature, mythology, and more. Today’s Beautiful Music is a performance of Monteverdi’s LAMENTO DELLA NINFA by Les Arts Florissants. You can also use the link below to read an interesting article discussing this particular madrigal. https://www.sonomabach.org/lamento-della-ninfa—claudio-monteverdi.html#:~:text=Lamento%20della%20Ninfa%20by%20Claudio,by%20the%20Venetian%20maestro%20himself.

French musician Nathalie Stutzmann is a renowned conductor who is currently Music Director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, the first female conductor to hold that job. Stutzmann has also had an international career as a contralto singer, and today’s Beautiful Music features her in that role. Nathalie Stutzmann and pianist Catherine Collard perform Claude Debussy’s

English poet John Keats wrote the poem FAIRY SONG, and New Zealand-born composer David Childs used the text for his 2010 choral work WEEP NO MORE. From a 2012 concert, Dr. Lynne Gackle conducts Baylor Bella Voce with pianist Celeste Johnson performing today’s Beautiful Music. You can also see the complete poem using the link

I CARRY YOUR HEART WITH ME is a poem by ee cummings. (There’s a link below to the full text.) Today’s Beautiful Music is a lovely choral setting of the poem by American composer and conductor Z. Randall Stroope. Toh Ban Sheng conducts Raffles Chorale in this 2015 performance at Victoria Concert Hall in Singapore.

In 1938, James Agee wrote his prose poem KNOXVILLE SUMMER OF 1915. In 1947, soprano Eleanor Steber commissioned American composer Samuel Barber a work for voice and orchestra. She premiered Barber’s KNOXVILLE SUMMER OF 1915 in 1948 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. Today’s Beautiful Music is a voice and piano version

German poet Friedrich Schiller wrote his ODE TO JOY in 1785, and in 1824 composer Ludwig van Beethoven famously used some of it in the last movement of his Symphony #9. Today’s Beautiful Music is that final movement of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony performed by Nicholas McGegan conducting the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra and Chorale. You can

We know very little about composer Giovanni Antonio Guido’s life or career, except that he wrote four concertos called THE SEASONS, and he included a poem with each concerto, just as his contemporary Antonio Vivaldi did. Whose came first? We may never know! Today’s Beautiful Music features Giovanni Antonio Guido’s SEASONS performed by Andrés Gabetta

Medieval era French composer and poet Guillaume de Machaut lived from 1300-1377. He was highly respected and admired — even English poet Geoffrey Chaucer is said to have been directly inspired and influenced by Machaut. As we continue to celebrate Poetry Month, today’s Beautiful Music features selections of Machaut’s haunting, ancient musical poetry.