Sunday Playlist - 5/2/2021

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzrVlXh4mc1OhporMRjeL2CPQ8tLS1xcE

This week's playlist begins with a question--several questions, actually, but all with a common thread. Listen to John Lennon's "How?" I suspect many of us have asked similar questions over the past year, and may be doing so now as the virus begins to rage in India and continues to cause pain and suffering in our community. The pieces that follow aren't answers, exactly, but they are responses that could bring solace and point toward hope. We again here the remarkable harmony of the Echoes of Zion virtual choir who declare, "You Are My Hiding Place," followed by a four-part song from Thomas Tallis that begins:

God grant with grace, he us embrace,

In gentle part, bless he our heart;

With loving face shine he in place,

His mercies all on us to fall.

That piece led me to the Detroit Mass Choir singing, "God Is." Watch the faces of the choir as they become more and more involved in the promise of that gospel song. Finally, in a different mode and mood, Horowitz places the A minor mazurka of Chopin. I think of the composer, one of the most gifted pianists and melodists of 19th century Europe, chronically ill with tuberculosis. How could he go forward into something he wasn't sure of? He left us something of grace and beauty.