I am listening to a different piece of classical music each day as I read the book, Year of Wonder: Classical Music to Enjoy Day by Day by Clemency Burton-Hill. Once I read the few paragraphs for the day, I go on YouTube to search for the piece. I have seen how much the artists matter! Interpretations of the same song are often very different.
I have been doing this for a month now, and I look forward to a new piece each morning. I don’t enjoy every song, but I write simple words in a day planner to describe the music of the day: pensive, incessant, folksy, triumphant… and try to imagine when the music would be most appreciated. I might write that one song would be comforting to listen to when sad, or another captures the joy of a beginning or the tug of a goodbye. I also like to compare different recordings and choose a favorite artist.
The piece I include here today has been playing on repeat all week since Richard and I discovered this recording together. More than a word that best describes this song, its mood and expression, I mark the person I discovered it with. To me, this song will always be about a sweet day spent with Richard in our 28th year of marriage.