In the current issue of the magazine, Jay has a chronicle on the 2021 Salzburg Festival. In this episode, he plays some of the music he discusses: from Bach to Mozart to Gershwin. (There are seven composers in all.) A marvelous array of pieces and performers.

Bach, Keyboard Partita No. 1 in B flat, Gigue

The opening piece, Jay says is one of the most joyous, most exuberant pieces ever written. It is a movement of a symphony, actually—the finale. Jay closes this program with Victor Borge, the musician-comedian, or comedian-musician—but in a serious vein. There is much to soak in, in this relatively brief program. Maybe the kind to listen to twice.

Mozart, Symphony No. 34 in C, K. 338, finale
Rorem, “Ferry Me Across the Water”
Bach-Loussier, Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565
Henriques, Lullaby

It is characteristic of this podcast to contain a variety of music. But this episode is exceptionally diverse, with music by George Walker, Lili Boulanger, and Florence Price, to go with music by Mozart, Shostakovich, and Hindemith. Jay lays it out for you. Interesting and rewarding musical terrain.

Walker, “Lyric for Strings”

“Care to romp around in some Romantic piano music?” asks Jay. “Virtuosic Romantic piano music? High-quality salon stuff? Well, that’s what we’re going to do.” Jay gives us a program of the talented, witty, dashing Moritz Moszkowski (1854–1925). The final piece is maybe Moszkowski’s best loved: “Étincelles,” or “Sparks.”

Music of Moritz Moszkowski

Jay has a piece by Bach, and one of his best. He has another piece once attributed to Bach. And he has a third piece that may or not be—by the master, that is. In any case, wonderful music, and a highly interesting program.

Bach?-Stokowski, Toccata and Fugue in D minor, bwv 565
Stölzel (formerly attributed to Bach), “Bist du bei mir”
Bach, Toccata and Fugue in D minor, bwv 538

When Jay says “just perfect,” in this episode, he is referring to Marilyn Horne’s singing of “At the River.” This is the piece that ends the podcast. It’s a little Independence Day nod. Elsewhere, Jay discusses and plays a Debussy song, two famous guitar pieces, and a piano piece by Frederic Rzewski, the American composer (also a political radical), recently deceased. A neat, varied, interesting, and enriching program.

Debussy, “La mer est plus belle que les cathédrales”
Villa-Lobos, Prelude No. 5
Rzewski, “Down by the Riverside”
Barrios, “Julia Florida”
Lowry, arr. Copland, “At the River”

This episode begins with a poem, first published in The New Criterion, in 2002: Charles Tomlinson’s “If Bach had been a beekeeper.” It speaks of “the honey of C major.” We then duly hear some Bach in C major. We also hear a famous aria—an aria made famous by a movie. And “Estrellita,” in two different versions: the original song, plus what Heifetz did to it, or rather, for it. The podcast includes other appetizing items as well. A fine smorgasbord.

Bach, Prelude and Fugue in C major, “The Well-Tempered Clavier,” Book 2
Catalani, “Ebben? Ne andrò lontana,” from “La Wally”
Ponce-Heifetz, “Estrellita”
Coleridge-Taylor, “You Lay So Still in Sunshine”
Milhaud, “Love, My Heart”
Shostakovich, Piano Concerto No. 2, first movement
Ponce, “Estrellita”

Jay provides a program of songs and arias about spring: a variety of composers and languages. And performers. Maria Callas and Ella Fitzgerald are among them. This is a wonderful category of music: rhapsodic, hopeful, giddy, appreciative. Spring it up.

Argento, “Spring,” from “Six Elizabethan Songs”
Hahn, “Le printemps”
Strauss, “Der Lenz”
Wagner, “Du bist der Lenz,” from “Die Walküre”
Rachmaninoff, “Spring Waters”
Saint-Säens, “Printemps qui commence,” from “Samson et Dalila”
Hoiby, “Always It’s Spring”
Rodgers & Hammerstein, “It Might As Well Be Spring”

In this episode, Jay begins with some playing by Maxim Lando, a teenage pianist. There is also a solo-violin piece by John Corigliano: “Stomp.” At the end, Jay pays tribute to Christa Ludwig, one of the greatest singers of all time, who has passed away at 93. In a life of interviewing, he has been starstruck very few times, he says. He was by Christa Ludwig.

Sibelius, Piano Sonata in F, Op. 12
Led Zeppelin / Maxim Lando, “Stairway to Heaven”
Glazunov, finale, Symphony No. 5, “Heroic”
Corigliano, “Stomp”
Mancini, Theme to “Peter Gunn”
Brahms, “Wie Melodien zieht es mir”

This episode ends with “Embraceable You,” the Gershwin song—but in a piano arrangement by Earl Wild. An extraordinary thing. The episode begins with some Bach—the same piece, more or less, two different ways. Jay also has some music by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, known by some as “the African Mahler.” There is a story, too, about French horn playing. Does your pulse race when you have a big solo? You bet it does. Much to savor here.

Bach, Prelude in E minor from Book I of “The Well-Tempered Clavier”
Bach-Siloti, Prelude in B minor
Coleridge-Taylor, Clarinet Quintet in F-sharp minor, Op. 10, first movement
Dove, “Departure,” from “Airport Scenes”
Tchaikovsky, Symphony No. 5, slow movement
Gershwin-Wild, “Embraceable You”

Jay begins with a toast from “La rondine,” Puccini’s opera; he ends with “The Lord’s Prayer,” sung by Leontyne Price on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Lots in between, of course: including tributes to the jazz pianist and composer Claude Bolling; the jazz guitarist Pat Metheny; and the organist John Weaver. A delicious program.

Puccini, “Bevo al tuo fresco sorriso,” from “La rondine”
Fauré, “Reflets dans l’eau”
Bolling, “Baroque and Blue,” from Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano
Prokofiev, Piano Sonata No. 7
Metheny, “Have You Heard”
Weaver, Variation on “Sine Nomine”
Malotte, “The Lord’s Prayer”

What a strange title. What could it mean? That Jay addresses “The Well-Tempered Clavier” (both books), that masterpiece by Bach. And that he addresses music by Catalan composers. A successful mixture, we think you will find.

Bach, Prelude and Fugue in C major, “The Well-Tempered Clavier,” Book II
Montsalvatge, two songs from “Cinco canciones negras”
Mompou, “Secreto,” from “Impresiones íntimas”
Mompou, “Damunt de tu només les flors,” from “Combat del somni”
Fábregas, Elisenda, “Pluja brodada,” from “Imitació del foc”
Bach, Prelude and Fugue in F-sharp minor, “The Well-Tempered Clavier,” Book I
Bach, “Gigue” Fugue in G major

In 1913, Vachel Lindsay wrote “General William Booth Enters into Heaven.” It speaks of the founder of the Salvation Army. Peggy Noonan cited this poem in a recent column. In 1914, Charles Ives set the poem to music. You will hear it in this episode. Also a Beatles concerto (yes), a rag by an early Metropolitan Opera soprano (yes), some American standards, and, at the end, transcendent Mahler. Jay plays off a good amount of reader mail. An amazingly eclectic, interesting episode.

Shchedrin, Piano Concerto No. 1
Robison, “Think Well of Me”
Rutter, “Beatles Concerto,” first movement
Pinkard-Alexander-Mitchell, “Sugar”
Ives, “General William Booth Enters into Heaven”
Pinkard-Bernie-Casey, “Sweet Georgia Brown”
Case, “Metropolitan Rag”
Handel, “Rejoice greatly,” from “Messiah”
Mahler, Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection”

Jay has an assortment for you—some Bach, some jazz, some Russian, some French, a spiritual . . . It all ends with a thrilling “First Nowell.”

Bach, “Jauchzet, frohlocket,” Christmas Oratorio
Berlin, “White Christmas”
Bach, “Nun seid ihr wohl gerochen,” Christmas Oratorio
Gauntlett, “Once in Royal David’s City”
Trad., “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”
Chesnokov, “Gabriel Appeared”
Trad., “Il est né, le divin Enfant”
Trad., “Somebody Talkin’ ’bout Jesus”
Trad., “The First Nowell”

This episode is a real smorgasbord—works, mainly short, by Domenico Scarlatti, Rachmaninoff, Duparc, Stravinsky, Jonathan Dove, and Jerome Kern, among others. A tasty, diverse spread. You may well want it all.

Scarlatti, D., Sonata in G, K. 14
Rachmaninoff, Andante, Cello Sonata
Duparc, Lento, Cello Sonata
Lachenmann, “Five Variations on a Theme by Franz Schubert”
Stravinsky, Piece for Solo Clarinet
Shostakovich, Impromptu (for viola and piano)
Dove, “Fair Ship,” from “Under Alter’d Skies”
Kern-Tatum, “The Way You Look Tonight”

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”

That is a line from a hymn. Jay says it must apply to Bach’s Cello Suites, which players of that instrument get to live with all life long — through good times and (maybe most important) bad. Of course, all of the pieces on this program may be called “great companions”: from the pens of composers famous and obscure. An appetizing, companionable episode.

Bach, Allegro assai, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2
Bach-Rachmaninoff, Preludio, Violin Partita in E major
Tchaikovsky-Wild, Pas de quatre, “Swan Lake”
Bach, Sarabande, Cello Suite in C minor
Mancini, “Quanto dolce è quell’ardore”
Dalza, “Calata ala spagnola”
Monteverdi, “Quel sguardo sdegnosetto”
Price, F., “Down a Southern Lane”
Trad., arr. F. Price, “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord”