Igor Stravinsky is remembered mostly for his innovation, dissonance, and modernism. If you were forced to summarize his career and legacy in one sentence, that sentence would likely mention how his Rite of Spring in 1913 shocked the music world and led many to walk out of the concert hall at its premiere. 

However, after the end of the first World War, Stravinsky entered a decades-long period in which he retreated somewhat from the modernism that marked his earlier career. 

This might be connected to his return to the church, a desire for order following the horrors of the war, or simply his desire to explore musical forms. Whatever the reason, one result is this stunningly simple setting of Ave Maria. 

What makes this a beautiful song: 

1. The straightforward Gregorian chant style makes it meditative. 

2. The way the bass part is continuously climbing the scale makes it uplifting. 

3. The final “amen” doesn’t land on the root of the scale. It’s cheeky in a very restrained way. I can almost imagine Stravinsky peering at the listener over top of his iconic glasses, saying, “yeah, you didn’t see that coming, did you?” 

Recommended listening activity: 

Finding some art you made as a child and re-making it as an adult. 

Buy it here.

The post Week 850: “Ave Maria” by Igor Stravinsky appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.

Given that our solar system has eight planets (or if you’re a Pluto fan, nine) how many moons do you think call our solar system home? 

Something like 50 seems reasonable to me; eight planets with an average of six moons apiece, plus one or two others…yeah, let’s go with 50. 

Incorrect. 

Okay, how about 75? 

Not close to correct. 

NASA estimates there are nearly 900 – nine hundred! – total moons floating around out there. Saturn alone has 274, and Jupiter another hundred. 

The biggest is Jupiter’s Ganymede, which is larger than the planet Mercury. The smallest is Deimos, which orbits Mars and is exactly the same size as Shanghai’s financial district. Our own moon, for reference, has about the same surface area as North and South America combined, which is somehow bigger than I expected. 

Granted, not all the solar system’s moons have cool names like some of Jupiter and Saturn’s more well-known celebrity moons (Callisto! Europa! Titan!) and some are just chunks of rock orbiting large asteroids. But still. We are much more a system of moons than a system of planets. 

What makes this a beautiful song: 

1. The pairing of a huge booming kick drum and a tiny tapping snare. Like a huge planet orbited by a tiny moon. 

2. For the first minute, it sits pretty much on one note, as implied by that booming toned kick drum. But then at 1:19 a four-chord sequence enters that pops the song into three dimensions. 

3. Shortly after those chords come in, you can hear faint chatter in the background that sounds like audio from space missions, similar to the songs we listened to in week 359 and week 694. 

Recommended listening activity: 

Watching a moonrise. 

Spotify.

The post Week 849: “Moons” by Embee appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.

Despite being a huge instrument, the double bass can easily be overlooked.

In a typical jazz quartet, the pianist is often the composer and star. The drummer takes a wild solo. The trumpet grabs you by the ears with its piercing volume.

The double bass, meanwhile, stands there in the background anchoring the entire sound but getting none of the credit. When it takes a solo, the low-frequency sound can get lost in a loud jazz club, leading casual listeners to mistakenly think the song has ended.

Milo Fitzpatrick, who releases his music under the name Vega Trails, is a founding member and bassist for The Portico Quartet. I featured them in week 169, and mentioned the bass exactly once. I spent most of my word count talking about a different instrument.

So this week I’m making up for past oversights and shining a spotlight on the double bass.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. Although all other tracks on the album feature Jordan Smart on the saxophone (Milo Fitzpatrick isn’t a spotlight-hog) this track, the opener, is a bass solo. How Fitzpatrick resisted calling it “Love Your Bass” I will never know.

2. Well okay, it’s not quite a bass solo, as some light synths and the occasional piano plink provide background ambience, played by Fitzpatrick as well.

3. He uses the whole range of the instrument, providing a bass line and a melodic line simultaneously. I don’t know if that’s impressive to professional double-bass players, but it’s hugely impressive to me.

Recommended listening activity:

Appreciating that friend who spends most of their time supporting others.

Buy it here.

The post Week 848: “Love Your Grace” by Vega Trails appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.

I really want you to know the backstory of this week’s artist. However, nothing I could write here would do his story justice. So instead, before you hit play on the song itself, please take 12 minutes to hear Mirza Ramic’s story in his own words:

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The steady percussion at the opening is at a perfect pace for leisurely walking.

2. The warbling synth noise at 1:30 is like an echo of a human voice.

3. Many songs in this genre would be happy to stick with the opening three-chord loop. But as this track nears its midpoint, it opens up into a beautiful b-section, with four new chords and a greater sonic range. The fact that Ramic, his childhood stolen by the horrors of war, can create something with so much hope and beauty baked in, is enough to bring me to tears.

Recommended listening activity:

Putting your trauma behind you.

Buy it here.

The post Week 847: “Kepesh” by Arms and Sleepers appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.

Today I learned that it is possible to go to the town of Verona in Italy and visit the tomb of Juliet Capulet, the iconic and tragic character from “Romeo & Juliet.” Since at least the 1700s, tourists have flocked to the site to see an empty sarcophagus and marvel at the tragedy of star-crossed love.

To be clear: Juliet Capulet is a fictional character. So whoever occupied that sarcophagus was not her. Oh, and also: the story that inspired Shakespeare’s play was not set in Verona. So if you visit, just be aware that you’re visiting the resting place of a person who never existed in a location where their story was not originally set.

But love, and our obsession with it, has little to do with historical accuracy or logic. To quote Shakespeare himself: “reason and love keep little company together nowadays.”

Perhaps this is why, since at least the 1930s, people have not only been visiting Juliet’s supposed resting place, but writing letters to her and sending them to the tomb. Letters asking for advice, letters musing on missed connections, letters venting on the difficulties and pain that love can bring.

The best part of this story is that those letters – every one of them – is read and responded to by a group of volunteers known as the “Club di Giulietta.”

This bizarre yet quaint situation is what inspired Elvis Costello and The Brodsky Quartet to write their song cycle, “The Juliet Letters.” Costello’s lyrics are imaginary letters written to Juliet, and they’re equal parts touching, whimsical, and humorous.

Except track 5: “Dead Letter,” an instrumental interlude that is strikingly beautiful and much darker than most of the other songs on the album.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The funerial mood. The melancholy melody reminds me of “Es Ist Vollbracht” from Bach’s St. John Passion.

2. The unexpected chord changes. Despite mimicking a baroque sound, there is some modern crunchiness around the 1-minute mark.

3. The title. In the world of communication, nothing is more romantic than a letter; nothing is more tragic than a piece of undeliverable mail.

Recommended listening activity:

Brooding over a relationship that didn’t go the way it should have.

Spotify.

The post Week 846: “Dead Letter” by Elvis Costello and The Brodsky Quartet appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.

Fanny Mendelssohn’s musical talent was obvious from a very young age. Privileged by her wealthy background, she and her younger brother Felix were educated by some of the finest piano teachers available. Felix idolized his older sister, and despite an age gap of three years they often referred to themselves as twins.

Both excelled in music, but Fanny – by Felix’s own admission – was the superior pianist. By 13 she had memorized Bach’s complete “Well-Tempered Clavier.”

Unfortunately, the privilege of being from a wealthy family couldn’t overcome the fact that she was female. Upon turning 14, she wrote to her father to ask permission to continue in her musical studies. His response laid out the paths available to her and her brother: “Music will perhaps become his profession, while for you it can and must be only an ornament, never the basis of your being and doing.”

Felix Mendelssohn went on to become one of the most celebrated composers of the 1800s. He and Fanny remained close, and he constantly sought her advice on his compositions. When Fanny died of a stroke aged only 41, Felix was likely shattered. He would die of the same cause just months later.

Although most of her work went unpublished, she had been composing throughout her life. A century or so after she died, interest started to build around her work, and as much of it as possible was recovered and finally appreciated.

Still, for most people she is a footnote to her brother’s legacy. In a more equitable world, their legacies would be as inseparable as they were.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The way it shifts across unexpected chord changes, like at 1:05.

2. The way it hangs on cadences just a little longer than expected, like at 2:35.

3. The combination of 3/4 time and a minor key makes it sound like a sad waltz danced alone by someone whose partner didn’t show up.

Recommended listening activity:

Sharing an inside joke with a sibling.

Spotify.

The post Week 845: “Notturno in G Minor” by Fanny Mendelssohn appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.

This week’s song isn’t by an individual artist, or even technically a band. Instead, it comes to us courtesy of the Vancouver studio A Shell in the Pit.

A Shell in the Pit makes music and broader sound design for video games, or as they describe it on their website, they “make games sound like themselves” –a wonderfully simple phrase that captures the way their music fits so well with the games they help create.

“Rainy Day” comes from the work they did for “Sneaky Sasquatch.” My kids have been very much into this game recently. Even though it’s not a two-player game, each one will sit there and watch the other one play it. They request the soundtrack when we’re in the car. Working together, using cardboard and construction paper and every single toy they have, they built a landscape in the basement that mimics the landscape of the game. This project took days, and was always accompanied by the soundtrack.

It was the kind of sibling endeavour that I know they’ll always remember, because it came entirely from them, and it consumed them with a focus and collaboration that I rarely see in them. As they worked, I sat upstairs with the basement door open so that I could hear their heartwarming back-and-forth as they planned and built their world.

I listened in as much as I could without intruding. They’re getting older, and this kind of play might not last much longer. My son especially is at the age where his interests are changing, and that’s okay of course…but it’s nice to know that the curious toddler he once was is still in there, and I honestly think the music has a lot to do with it. He even told me, “this music just makes me so happy.”

So I guess in addition to making games sound like themselves, I can thank A Shell in the Pit for making my kids play like themselves.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The way the percussion comes in with a series of false starts beginning at 0:45.

2. The way the middle-bass line waits until just after the fourth beat of the bar to hit its final note.

3. The high synth sounds like a theremin, if Fisher-Price made a theremin.

Recommended listening activity:

Building.

Buy it here.

The post Week 844: “Rainy Day” by A Shell in the Pit appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.

I have a healthy respect for harpists. A portion of this respect comes from the beautiful sound they produce, and the fine motor skills required.

But mostly I’m impressed by their commitment.

Committing to harp mastery means committing to having a harp in your house and lugging it around with you. And a full-sized harp is enormous; six feet tall by three feet wide and pushing a hundred pounds.

Yes, okay, pianos are bulkier than that. But pianos are everywhere. Walk down your street and there might be a piano in 20% of the houses you pass. Maybe more. If you visit someone’s house for the first time and they’ve got a piano, you might think to yourself, “oh, neat, a piano,” – if you notice it at all. Can you imagine your reaction if you walked into someone’s house and saw a harp in the living room? It would be the only thing you’d remember about the house a month later.

All this is to say that if someone is booking a pianist for their wedding reception or anniversary party or grandma’s 100th, they’re booking a pianist, because the venue will undoubtedly have half a dozen pianos just sitting around. If someone is booking a harpist, they’re also expecting the musician to transport a human-sized Guinness logo.

Harpists, therefore, are rare and special birds. Here we are at week 843, and as best I can tell, British harpist Rachel Kitchlew is just our third featured harpist, after Dorothy Ashby and Mikaela Davis.

Kitchlew unsurprisingly cites Dorothy Ashby as an influence, but to me her sound – at least on her 2025 album Flirty Ghost – is closer to the laid-back jazz of Svaneborg Kardyb or the vintage experimental funk of Cymande.

If your summer checklist includes a hammock, a drink, and a good book, I’d like to add Flirty Ghost as a potential soundtrack. A solid record from start to finish, “Heady” for me is the track that pairs best with any summer activity that requires horizontality.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. It begins with a cascade of glissandos, like the intro to a dream sequence.

2. The main groove sees the harp spending a lot of time on the seventh degree of the scale; possibly the headiest note of the scale.

3. During the final minute, the mood shifts to a slightly uneasy vibe, with the lap steel guitar wailing ghost-like in the background.

Recommended listening activity:

Sitting at the spot in your house where a harp might fit. (And then, possibly, feeling grateful for the sacrifices made by harpists around the world.)

Buy it here.

The post Week 843: “Heady” by Rachel Kitchlew appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.

I’ve never been a big fan of scary movies. And yet, I have seen many, many scary movies.

A large proportion of the scary movies I’ve seen came during a very specific time in my life – I’d guess from age 11 to 13 – when my older brother and I were suddenly gripped by a compulsion to rent every horror movie from every video rental store within a two-kilometre radius of our house. (And this was the early 90s, so video rental places were about as common in Toronto as cannabis stores are now.)

We did every major franchise: the nightmares on Elm street, the Friday the 13ths, the Halloweens. We did classics like Psycho and The Exorcist. We did weird horror-comedy crossovers like House.

Given that I was the type of kid who got scared by the low-budget costumes from 80s-era Doctor Who, why did I sit through so many hours of legitimately scary cinema?

At the time, I didn’t know. If you’d asked me back then, I probably would have said that I liked the films; I may have even convinced myself that I did. After all, the adolescent mind has a way of deluding itself to navigate illogical situations.

In retrospect though, the simple answer is: my brother.

Scary movies were his passion, and since he was the all-knowing older one, I must have assumed that a) I wanted to watch the movies too, and b) it was somehow safe to do so. Sitting in a scary place is easier if you do it with someone who represents protection.

In the decades since, my tastes have shifted to other genres: Bond movies, mid-Century musicals, the occasional intellectual speculative sci-fi.

My brother is now a YouTuber who reviews horror movies.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The bass. Just a simple four-note loop, but with the dark fuzziness of an 80s horror movie.

2. The vocal sample. Chopped and not quite intelligible, like some weird incantation that a possessed child says while looking creepily into a mirror.

3. The drums. With that double-time hi-hat, hearty kick drum, and perhaps the hardest rim hit on the snare, this might be one of the most confident drum loops I’ve ever heard. In other words, the kind of drums that would protect you from scary things.

Recommended listening activity:

Checking over your shoulder, just in case.

Buy it here.

The post Week 842: “We Are Sitting in a Scary Place” by Obli appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.

You’re in the middle of something really difficult.

There’s an obvious light at the end of the tunnel, and everyone tells you to focus on the light because soon you’ll be there and everything will be great. “Yeah, you’re right,” you say, but it’s hard to believe that when things aren’t going well. “Yeah, you’re right,” you say, because you don’t want to look ungrateful for not looking on the bright side.

I don’t know if this is good advice, but maybe the light is the wrong thing to look at. It might just be giving you a headache. If you’re running as hard as you can, the light at the end of the tunnel doesn’t stop your lungs from burning or your feet from aching. Stare at it too hard and somehow the light seems to be getting further away, not closer.

Maybe you should look at your feet. Maybe pay attention to how much your lungs are burning. Tell the universe, “yes, I like this. More burning, please.”

Maybe the light only shows up when you honestly forget it’s there.

What makes this a beautiful song:

1. The heart-beat kick drum makes it personal.

2. The pulsing synth makes it breathe.

3. The never-resolving chord progression makes it infinite.

Recommended listening activity:

Being uncomfortable.

Buy it here.

The post Week 841: “Chasing Bliss” by Jesse Kendal appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week.