Jay begins with some festive music: specifically, the “Festive Overture” of Shostakovich. He has a showtune: “Some Other Time.” He has an Aretha Franklin hit, about zoomin’. He has a spiritual: “Ain’t Got Time to Die.” Some French organ music. And more. He ends with Karel Ančerl, the great Czech conductor who endured horror and produced much beauty and brilliance.

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Jay’s previous episode was devoted to music of spring. As he points out, it’s still spring—and there’s a lot of spring music out there. So he goes a second round. This round serves up Schubert, Mahler, Copland, Rodgers & Hammerstein, and more. A colorful, happy bouquet.

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The title of this episode pretty much tells its story. Jay plays balm-like music, and delight-giving music—heavy on the Bach. At the beginning of the show, he asks, “Need I say that music is extra-important in these strange and trying times?” He answers, “Of course I don’t.”

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Jay ends this episode with the beloved theme song to “The Jeffersons,” “Movin’ on Up.” It was co-written and sung by Ja’net DuBois, who died recently. Also in this episode you have two arias by Handel; a piano piece by Ravel, miraculously played; some little-known Mozart, which is knockout; and yet more. Take a break away, as Jay says.

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Mariss Jansons, the great Latvian conductor, born in 1943, died toward the end of last year. Jay talks about him, relating stories both from him and about him. (Jay interviewed Jansons twice, ten years apart.) And, of course, we hear music—from Jansons and his orchestras.

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Jay plays his favorite Christmas tracks: from Bach to gospel to jazz and beyond. Performers include Hermann Prey, James Cleveland, George Shearing, Heidi Grant Murphy, and Leontyne Price. A gift of a podcast.

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This episode begins with a liturgical piece by James MacMillan—a living composer—and ends with another liturgical piece by Wynton Marsalis—another living composer. In between, you’ve got some Saint-Saëns, some Sibelius, and some other music. Jay says some provocative—possibly offensive—things about a couple of cello concertos. Otherwise, it’s sweetness and light, mainly. A good show.

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That’s what Jay calls a Bach piece arranged for organ by Jean Guillou: pure joy. There is some more pure joy in this episode too—including the final movement of Brahms’s Horn Trio, which Jay plays to honor Myron Bloom, the great French-horn player who died on September 26. He also honors, at the end, Christopher Rouse, the American composer, who died on September 21. Music, said Rouse, in a statement to be issued after his passing, “has given me life and a reason for living.”

Jay also plays some Ella Fitzgerald, some Leontyne Price, and more. There is also a tale from opera lore: about Rudolf Bing and George Szell, who were too big for the same town.

As Jay tells us at the beginning, he has been reviewing from two summer festivals: the Mostly Mozart Festival (New York) and the Salzburg Festival, in Mozart’s hometown. He discusses and plays a variety of music performed at these festivals: Haydn, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Enescu – and Mozart, for sure.

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