Singing on a Friday morning

Take a pause and listen

Sometimes you get to share something special. I subscribe to

Vitaliy Katsenelson

’s classical music blog (he’s better known for his writings about investments; I can’t help you with that). He recently shared this sublime aria, "Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voie”—from Camille Saint-Saens’ opera, Samson et Delila, sung by Elīna Garanča, a Latvian mezzo soprano with an exquisite voice. I had one of those died-and-went-to-heaven moments.

Elīna Garanča

The piece put me into mind of Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs, a haunting cycle for soprano and orchestra, written at the close of Strauss’s life (age 84). This was among the first musical works I played with my college symphony and I was blown away. Our conductor was C. William Harwood, a rising star as an interpreter of opera, whose life was tragically cut short at age 36.

The four movements are - Frühling (Spring), September, Beim Schlafengehen (When Falling Asleep), Im Abendrot (At Sunset). Please sit back and take a listen to the incomparable Jessye Norman sing them.

Jessye Norman

In bookland this week, I have just read, for the first time, Carson McCullers’s MEMBER OF THE WEDDING. It is a breathtaking piece of fiction, conjuring an isolated southern town, the frustrations of a lonely adolescent girl, gender fluidity, race dynamics, and so much more. I highly recommend it.

That’s what I got. (And yeah, my next novel, DUET FOR ONE, has a lot to do with music!)

Have a wonderful weekend.

Love,

Martha

P.S. ICYMI, here’s last week’s newsletter: What fuels and sustains you?