In honor of the recent “blue moon,” Jay plays four songs about the moon—two classical, two popular. He also has some Quincy Jones, some Cannibal Corpse (yup), some Villa-Lobos, and some Bruckner. Complain if you will, but not about a lack of variety.

Rodgers & Hart, “Blue Moon”
Bellini, “Vaga luna, che inargenti”
Dvořák, “Song to the Moon,” from “Rusalka”
Howard, “Fly Me to the Moon”
Jones, “The Streetbeater”
Cannibal Corpse, “Frantic Disembowelment”
Villa-Lobos, “Punch,” from “The Baby’s Family”
Villa-Lobos, “Lullaby” from “The Baby’s Family”
Bruckner, Symphony No. 4

That’s what Dido sings in Purcell’s opera, about her and Aeneas: “Remember me!” Jay is reminded of this when filling out forms on the Internet. In this episode, he plays Dido, plus Charlie Parker, Franz Schmidt, Leonard Bernstein, Lyle Lovett, and others. An unusually eclectic show—which also brings the Op. 1 by a young woman from Las Vegas: a “quarantine rag.”

Trad., “The Parting Glass”
Parker or Davis, “Donna Lee”
Verdi, “Parmi veder le lagrime,” from Verdi’s “Rigoletto”
“Glow-Worm”
Schmidt, Adagio from Quintet in A major
Mosca, Kristen, “Quarantine Rag”
Bernstein, “I Am Easily Assimilated,” from “Candide”
Lovett, “If I Had a Boat”
Purcell, “Dido’s Lament,” from “Dido and Aeneas”

That’s a lot to promise in one humble music podcast, isn’t it? Greatness, consolation, and transcendence? But it is truth in advertising.

Handel, “Dopo notte atra e funesta,” from Handel’s “Ariodante”
Pärt, “Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten”
Mozart, Clarinet Concerto
Trad., “Shenandoah”
Brahms, Piano Trio No. 1 in B major, Op. 8
Bach, “Mache dich, mein Herze, rein,” from St. Matthew Passion

Mozart wrote his “Orphanage Mass” when he was twelve. Pretty good. Mendelssohn wrote his Octet in E flat when he was sixteen. Really good. Jay provides excerpts from these works, and also presents Chopin and Argerich, Strauss and Davidsen, and more. As the episode begins with Mozart, it ends with Mozart: a heavenly soprano aria from some vespers. You could well nigh ascend.

Mozart, Mass in C minor (“Waisenhausmesse”), K. 139
Mendelssohn, Octet in E flat
Chopin, Largo, Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58
Strauss, “Cäcilie”
Strauss, “Ruhe, meine Seele!”
Mozart, “Laudate Dominum omnes gentes,” from “Vesperae solennes de confessore”

Jay begins with a gigue, a jig, by Leclair. We also have Haydn, Brahms, and Penderecki. (The Brahms is played by Leon Fleisher, the great American pianist who has died in recent days.) There are also two items from the American Songbook — one of them sung by Jack Teagarden, the other by Frank Sinatra. This episode ends with a spiritual, a powerhouse.

Leclair, Jean-Marie the Elder, Gigue from the Violin Concerto in B flat, Op. 10, No. 1