Not much to say about this one! Pour a cup of tea and draw yourself a musical bath – courtesy of Ralph Vaughan-Williams.

Some quick notes about Vaughan-Williams :

• He loved and collected English folk music; its influence can be heard in all his music
• He was the son of a priest, but was an atheist; later, a self-described “cheerful agnostic”
• Despite the above, he wrote a great deal of sacred music and practically defined the hymnody of the Anglican church for a century
• He volunteered to serve as an ambulance driver in WWI; the experience affected him (and, by extension, his music) profoundly
• His remains are interred in Westminster Abbey, near those of Purcell and C.V. Stanford

Vaughan-Williams’ music might be conservative when compared to his contemporaries, but it really hits home. The Lark Ascending is simply transcendent.

Humans love to categorize things. It’s not a bad thing – it helps us predict what will happen when we come across something new. For example, if I come across a new life form, and it looks like a plant, smells like a plant, and acts like a plant, I might assume it’s a plant, and therefore, it probably won’t jump up and eat me. On the other hand, if I meet a new life form that looks like a tiger, smells like a tiger, and acts like a tiger, it’s probably too late to run, because that tigeresque creature has already thought that I look like food, smell like food, and act like food.

So how does this affect music? You probably know Leonard Bernstein from his “West Side Story“. You might also know he was the longtime conductor of the New York Philharmonic, one of the top orchestras in the world. People today are still arguing whether his pieces are “Musical Theater” or “Opera”, “Classical” or “Pops”, “new musical territory” or “borrowed from other musical genres”. So then they start calling this music “Crossover“.
Oy vey.

His Broadway Show, no, Opera, no, piece “Candide” is based on the story by Voltaire. The overture, below, has clear, singable melodies (like musical theater) and complex rhythm, harmony, and masterful orchestration (like opera.) And, no matter what it looks, smells, or acts like, it won’t eat you.