Melancholy Mixtape / June 2024

Seven works to experience this month, from a moonlit gondola ride to a song of consolation in which grief and loss give way to an enduring love.

Jun 08, 2024

Detail view of a painting showing three figures, dressed in Roman togas, in various states of sorrow — Jacques Louis David (French, 1748–1825). *The Death of Socrates* (detail), 1787. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Welcome to this month's Melancholy Mixtape, a new series at Shades of Blue that weaves together moments of melancholy classical music to help you cultivate calm, connection, and healing throughout the month. (If you're a new subscriber, head over here to check out May's inaugural installment.)

In this month's mixtape, we'll embark on a moonlit gondola ride, swoon at the tender song of a dove, and in honor of Pride Month, experience works by three composers — Karol Szymanowski, Ethel Smyth, and Benjamin Britten — whose music expresses the shadowy, sensual longing of the love that dared not speak its name during their lifetimes.

Regardless of how you consume these Melancholy Mixtapes — getting to know each work one by one here on Substack, or listening to them all at once on YouTube, Spotify, or Idagio — I hope you enjoy this month's selections.

Johannes Brahms / Violin Concerto, II. Adagio

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Lisa Batiashvili, violin 
Staatskapelle Dresden
Christian Thielemann, conductor

Like a heavenly hurdy-gurdy, a choir of woodwinds sings a hymn of tranquility later taken up by the solo violin, who transforms its melody into a rhapsody of bittersweet bliss.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky / The Seasons, VI. June — Barcarolle

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Fazil Say, piano

A gondolier journeys across not a sun-strewn Venetial canal, but a shadowy sea of tears — evoking the "mysterious sadness" of the poetic epigraph included on Tchaikovsky's score:

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Let us go to the shore, where 
The waves will kiss our legs. 
With a mysterious sadness 
The stars will shine down upon us.

Poet: Aleksey Pleshcheyev
Translation: Courtesy of Tchaikovsky Research

Ottorino Respighi / Gli uccelli (The Birds), II. La colomba (The Dove)

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The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra
Hugh Wolff, conductor

A solitary dove sings a tender song of longing, accompanied by orchestral textures that conjur summer's gentle breezes and the buzzing of insects sizzling under the Roman sun.

Erich Wolfgang Korngold / Die tote Stadt (The Dead City), Marietta's Song

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Renée Fleming, soprano
English Chamber Orchestra
Jeffrey Tate, conductor
(Follow along with the German text and English translation.)

A widower named Paul meets Marietta, a dancer who bears a striking resemblance to Paul's recently deceased wife, Marie. As the sun sets one evening, he asks Marietta to sing one of Marie's favorite songs — a hushed lullaby that in its final lines shows grief and loss giving way to an enduring love:

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Though somber sorrows approach,
move closer to me, my faithful love.
Tilt your pale face —
death will not separate us.
If you must leave me one day,
know that we will rise again.

Librettist: Julius Korngold
Translation: Michael Cirigliano II

Karol Szymanowski / Nine Preludes for Piano, I. Andante

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Krystian Zimerman, piano

Szymanowski sets a scene of shadowy seduction, navigating moments of tension and release as gestures of intensifying passion rise and fall in the depths of the piano.

Ethel Smyth / String Quintet in E Major, II. Andantino

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Mannheim String Quartet
Joachim Griesheimer, cello

Mystery and suspense permeate Smyth's brief dance for five string players (two violins, one viola, two cellos) — the coarse, burnished voice of the viola leading the way as the quintet journeys between moments of frisky flirtation and overwhelming intensity.

Benjamin Britten / Four Sea Interludes from Peter Grimes, III. Moonlight

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London Symphony Orchestra
Stuart Bedford, conductor

At the heart of Peter Grimes — a turbulent tale of fear and persecution in an isolated coastal village — Britten conjures a hypnotic portrait of the North Sea at night, the water and its relentless, heaving motions illuminated by shafts of moonlight that dance bewitchingly upon the surface.

Listen to this month's Melancholy Mixtape on YouTube, Spotify, and Idagio.

I'd love to hear about your experience with one of the works I've shared this month! Leave a comment below or reply to this email. (And if you enjoyed your time here today, would you ever so kindly tap that little heart below? 👇🏼)

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