http://www.beautifulsongoftheweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Paul-Hindemith-Sonata-For-Viola-And-Piano-Op.-11-Nr.-4-In-F-Major_-I.-Fantasie.mp3 When I think of music between the two World Wars my mind immediately goes to jazz, which is understandable, but does a bit of a disservice to the classical composers of that time. I haven’t featured nearly enough composers from the interwar period yet; even the big ones like Stravinsky and Prokoviev. All in good time. But a lesser-known (to me at least) voice from between the wars was Paul Hindemith. Born in Germany, Hindemith was a teenager when World War 1 broke out, and his father died in battle in 1915. Three years later, Paul himself joined the army, and narrowly escaped death a couple of times. The end of the war began a prolific period for Hindemith; the 1920s saw him produce eight operas, four ballets, four orchestral works and countless concertos and choral works as well. His music was not atonal like some other composers of the time, but it also didn’t rely on a diatonic scale; his stated goal was to free up all twelve notes of the chromatic scale. As a result, much of his music was written without a specified key signature, and it wanders from one tonal centre to another in surprising ways. As the Nazis came to power in Germany, Hindemith’s music was eventually condemned as “degenerate” and was banned. He fled to Switzerland, and eventually to the US, where he taught at Yale and lived out the rest of his days. What makes this a beautiful song: 1. I love that he wrote specifically for the viola. I’ve already written about the underappreciated viola before; Hindemith really does it justice here. 2. The way the melody is passed between the viola and the piano. 3. That melodic line is so darned catchy and low-key epic. Feels like it could be from a John Williams film score. Recommended listening activity: Looking into the whereabouts of your direct ancestors during the 1920s. Spotify. The post Week 788: “Fantasie” by Paul Hindemith appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week .…

http://www.beautifulsongoftheweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Penguin-Cafe-Ricercar.mp3 There are plenty of good Father’s Day gifts out there, and many of them require minimal effort. Most dads are so easy to please that you can literally (speaking for myself here, but I bet I’m not alone) buy them a couple dozen pairs of socks and they will be genuinely happy. If you can afford a bit more, the perfect gift is usually not hard to identify. Dad is a sports fan? Tickets to a game. More of a theatre buff? Take him to a show. Got a foodie father? Head to the restaurant he loves but is too cheap to pay for himself. But what gift do you go for if your dad was an avant-garde musician who created a musical project inspired by a hallucination he had as a result of food poisoning but who died before age fifty? Well, if you’re Arthur Jeffes, you create a new band committed to playing – and extending – his musical repertoire. I mean, there’s no Hall of Fame dedicated to Father’s Day gifts, but that’s gotta be right up there. The dad in question is Simon Jeffes, and the hallucination was of a dystopian city in which humanity lived disconnected from each other. Arthur described his dad’s vision like this: “…there were these blocks of flats where everyone lived and it was a very bleak and grey place. You could look into these different rooms and see all these different examples of a dehumanized existence. So in one room there was a couple making love, soundlessly and lovelessly. In another room there was a musician with an array of musical equipment but he had headphones on and there was no music in the room. And in another room there was just someone looking at a screen, immobile and inactive. In the top corner of all these rooms there was a big malevolent camera, fundamentally a big eye spying on all of them.” Down the road from this bleak setting was a café that was full of life and music; a beacon of hope that must have seemed to the hallucinating Jeffes like the only logical choice for a meaningful life. It was called the Penguin Café, and he named his band The Penguin Café Orchestra , writing music that he imagined this band would play. Following the elder Jeffes’ premature death, his son Arthur played a series of concerts featuring his dad’s music. The only difference was that Arthur dropped the “Orchestra” from the band’s original name, going instead by simply, “Penguin Café”. The Penguin Café grew beyond a tribute or cover band into a project of his own, but the new music he composed remained true to his father’s vision: music of hope and life. What makes this a beautiful song: 1. The way it fades in already in full stride, like an idea that was there before you even knew it. 2. The way it oscillates between the first and augmented second degree of the scale. There’s something mystical about an augmented second. 3. The steady tempo and looping eighth notes in the background lend a comforting feeling of infinity. Recommended listening activity: Doing something special with your dad. Or even better, something completely normal. Buy it here. The post Week 787: “Ricercar” by Penguin Cafe appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week .…

http://www.beautifulsongoftheweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Marsipan.mp3 In my opinion, marzipan is a bit underrated in the world of sweets. It’s not a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer like chocolate, or a Halloween icon like gummy bears, or an after-dinner favourite like mint. Marzipan occupies the same tier as, say, licorice. Those who love it, live for it. Those who don’t…find it disgusting. Furthermore, it’s rare to find folks who like both marzipan and licorice. It’s like Messi and Ronaldo. You’ve gotta pick a side. I’m in the pro-marzipan, anti-licorice camp, and I’ll tell you why. First, there’s the holiday connection. Marzipan is the secret superpower in Christmas cake, right between the layer of icing and the cake itself. Licorice has no holiday connections that I’m aware of, and frankly, I’d rather get a stocking full of coal than a stocking full of Licorice All-Sorts. Second, marzipan isn’t a spotlight hog. Licorice is so full of itself it thinks you’d be happy to have it on its own. Marzipan is modest. It’s a helper, a key ingredient in many chocolates and the aforementioned Christmas cake. Finally, licorice comes from a plant called Glycyrrhiza glabra which, first of all: ridiculous name. Completely off the rails. But more to the point, doctors have advised that black licorice can cause complications that are “acutely life-threatening” according to heart.org . Marzipan meanwhile comes from the honourable almond, jam-packed with vitamin E, protein, and calcium among much else. So eat your marzipan. And while you’re at it, listen to Marsipan by Swedish lofi artist Onyx Value. What makes this a beautiful song: 1. The guitar and horns are delicious natural ingredients. 2. The bossa flavour is as sweet as sugar. 3. A modest little piano solo in the second minute. Recommended listening activity: Splitting something sweet with someone sweet. Spotify. The post Week 786: “Marsipan” by Onyx Value appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week .…

http://www.beautifulsongoftheweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Marian-Hill-Got-It-Audio.mp3 I know this isn’t “make out song of the week” but I just have to share this track because it’s too good. And making out is beautiful in its own way, right? Right. Seriously- this song by Philadelphia duo Marian Hill is seething with make-out anticipation energy, regardless of your life stage. Remember the beautiful innocence of heading over to a high school sweetheart’s house? Or, twenty years later, the sudden realization that you and your spouse have a weekend without the kids? That’s a beautiful thing, and let’s never forget it. What makes this a beautiful song: 1. The lazy, laid-back approach to the vocals, especially the sultry delivery on lines like, “I got this thiiiiiing.” 2. The unexpected layering of harmonies heading into the chorus. 3. The horniest saxophone in the history of music. Recommended listening activity: That’s your business. Spotify. The post Week 785: “Got It” by Marian Hill appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week .…

http://www.beautifulsongoftheweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Berceuse-pour-Riel.mp3 Before Europeans settled in North America, millions upon millions of bison roamed the great plains in thundering herds. They were hunted by Indigenous groups, but always in moderation. Indigenous culture was tightly intertwined with the bison, and the creatures were seen as sacred, given that they provided the people with food, tools, fuel, shelter…just about every aspect of life on the plains was connected to the bison. There was a use for absolutely every part of the animal. Then came the 1800s, and colonists in North America started moving west. The bison population plummeted to triple-digits by the year 1900. The American Bison Society helped to interrupt the path to extinction, and through lobbying and fundraising secured a small but stable population of wild bison in national parks by 1935. At which point they patted each other on the back and disbanded the organization. A nice early example of animal preservation, but it ignored the fact that the decimation of the bison population had pulled the foundations out from under the feet of many Indigenous groups. And in fact, the stamping out of Indigenous culture was part of the purpose of decimating the bison population. There are a few places you can go to learn about the bison and the people who lived alongside them. I went to an excellent one this week with my family, and it was a beautiful place. But its existence did make me sad, because it’s a monument to a species of animal and a way of life that, while perhaps not completely gone, will never be the same. What makes this a beautiful song: 1. The “Riel” in the title is Louis Riel. If you’re Canadian, you already know who Louis Riel was . If you’re not, he fought to ensure that a group of people – the Métis – were not ignored in Canada’s westward expansion. He was also a hero to French-speakers in Canada’s early years, and stood up to the Anglophone powers-that-were. 2. Born into a bilingual household, Étienne Fletcher sings in French despite hailing from a part of the country (Saskatchewan) that is primarily English-speaking. The irony of this song named for Louis Riel is that Fletcher’s only vocals are a muted humming, while a recording of a young child speaking – in English – is in the foreground. 3. The album cover features a Hawaiian bird, which at first seems not to fit with the song’s themes. Except that the bird is the O’o, a bird native to Hawaii that has gone extinct since the age of American takeover began. Recommended listening activity: Browsing a second-hand store and imagining the people who once loved the things on the shelf. Buy it here. The post Week 784: “Berceuse Pour Riel” by Étienne Fletcher appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week .…

http://www.beautifulsongoftheweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/svalbard-leland-whitty-steptodown.com_.mp3 Svalbard is group of islands belonging to Norway, with a combined area about the same as Sri Lanka. (Or, if it’s easier for you to conceptualize, Latvia. Or West Virginia or Nova Scotia or Tasmania.) To say it’s an interesting place is a gross understatement. Just a few of the territory’s quirks: Nobody is from Svalbard. Everyone who lives there was born somewhere else, and anyone due to give birth must go to mainland Norway to do so. There are no trees. (The environment won’t allow it.) There are no cats. (The government won’t allow it on account of the rare birds.) If you travel outside the main settlements, you are required to carry a gun. This is in case a polar bear gets hungry. It’s home to the Global Seed Vault. You can read about it here , but basically it’s a huge cave filled with seeds in case the world’s vegetation is wiped out due to [insert global catastrophe here]. It’s so far north that it goes three months without a trace of sun. Being just about as far north as you can go before you start going south again, Svalbard is home to the northernmost of several things, including the northernmost: Settlement (Ny-Ålesund) Airport (in Longyearbyen) Blues Festival (also in Longyearbyen) University (well, research centre, which totally counts) Piano (in Pyramiden, which is an abandoned Russian mining town) That last town must feel like a time capsule. It was built in the Soviet era and abandoned in 1998, but because of the permafrost and dry arctic air, disused buildings in Svalbard don’t decay. The structures in the ghost town are all basically just as sound as they were when they were built. I don’t know which aspect of Svalbard’s uniqueness prompted Toronto’s Leland Whitty to name this song after it, but it does evoke the Norwegian islands in a few wonderful ways. What makes this a beautiful song: 1. The disorienting polyrhythms of the opening seconds. 2. The unresolved feeling of the opening minute. 3. The final settling onto the root chord at 1:05. Recommended listening activity: Making a diorama in your freezer. Buy it here. The post Week 783: “Svalbard” by Leland Whitty appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week .…

http://www.beautifulsongoftheweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Past-Present-Future.mp3 Before learning to play the saxophone, the clarinet, and the flute; before attending the Detroit Institute for Musical Arts; before meeting John Coltrane, who encouraged him to move to New York to pursue his dreams; before collaborating with Herbie Hancock; before playing on Miles Davis’ most pivotal album. Before all that. Before all that, a young Bennie Maupin would go down the street after school to sit under an open window where an elderly neighbour would play the saxophone. He’d hold a stick in his hands, imagine it was a sax, close his eyes and play along. I hope it was that memory that went through Maupin’s head each time he performed this song. What makes this a beautiful song: 1. The first ten seconds have the hazy quality of a memory from the distant past. 2. Then, the eleventh second hits you with a sudden key change, jolting you back into the present. 3. The final chord lasts for just about the last 30 seconds of the song, fading off into the future. Recommended listening activity: Travelling through time. Spotify . The post Week 782: “Past + Present = Future” by Bennie Maupin appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week .…

http://www.beautifulsongoftheweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/KIDSO-Childhood-Original.mp3 I figured that sharing a song called “childhood” by a band called “ Kidsø ” would be the perfect opportunity to share something about my own childhood. But upon further reflection, I realize that if you’ve been reading this long enough, you already know more than enough about my childhood. You know about my childhood bedroom . You know about my childhood Christmases . You know about the cassette tapes that my family listened to on long road trips. You know the bizarre imagination game my brother and I played intermittently for years. But before this post turns into the blog equivalent of a flashback episode, let me give you one quick childhood memory that I haven’t told you: I must have been something like 9 or 10 years old, and my family was visiting Ottawa; the nation’s capital. Not sure why we were there, but there was some kind of big celebration going on, so let’s say it was Canada Day. The memory is hazy, but I remember there being a big crowd of people in an outdoor space, and there was music playing. The crowd had formed a big circle around a central place where people were dancing. Not a dance battle or anything, just a half-dozen people or so who felt the desire to dance. And then, out of nowhere, I decided I was going to dance too. And not normal, clap-your-hands-and-move-your-feet-slightly dancing. I decided I was going to full-on breakdance and blow these people’s minds. Did I know how to breakdance? No. No I did not. But I wasn’t going to let that detail stop me. I hit the floor (pavement) and did some kind of dance that must have looked like a fish’s movements when it lands on the floor of a fishing boat, but with arms and legs instead of fins. The crowd parted further, to give me more space / to protect themselves from my flailing body. I think they were cheering, but that sound may also have existed solely in my head. I mention this in the context of this song because it’s the last memory I have of the complete inhibition that is one of childhood’s treasures, and that uninhibited joy is one of the primary emotions evoked by the music of German house duo Kidsø. What makes this a beautiful song: 1. It’s hard not to love a song that incorporates a group of kids singing on the playground. I don’t know the exact story behind the sample here, but it’s as catchy as it is heartwarming. 2. Many of the melodic and percussive elements – the finger piano, the glockenspiel – are instruments that just emanate childhood. 3. The slow-down at the end is like a music box running out of steam. Recommended listening activity: Learning a new hand-clapping game. Buy it here. The post Week 781: “Childhood” by Kidsø appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week .…

http://www.beautifulsongoftheweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Hey-Rosetta-Psalm.mp3 When I was 26 my new girlfriend told me about a music festival we absolutely HAD to attend. She’d been the previous summer and assured me it was the best opportunity to see tons of local bands for cheap before they got famous. Held on an island big enough for three separate stages but small enough to feel like a village, the festival had its finger on the pulse of the exploding Toronto-area music scene of the early 2000s, while still hanging on to its hippie roots. I scanned the lineup and saw everything from Broken Social Scene to slam poetry to a workshop on making your own vegan diapers. Having the utmost respect for my new girlfriend’s musical tastes, I gladly went along and loved every minute of it. Every band blew my mind – I wrote about one of them in week 558 – and many bands we saw there have appeared on this list over the years. We went back summer after summer, and as I got older and less cool the band names became more and more unfamiliar. I just Googled the lineup for this year and I recognize a total of zero of the scheduled performers. I hope the vegan diaper tent is still going strong. Ultimately, the festival was the perfect thing at the perfect time for me. It provided a bridge into adulthood; it helped me feel connected to something vital and young as I took on first jobs, got a first house, bought a first suit. In our seventh summer together, rather than go to the festival my girlfriend and I got married. We went back a few years later, but it was mostly for the sake of nostalgia. It carried the same feeling of familiarity and estrangement that comes when you wander the halls of your old high school. I missed it, but the excitement of that first summer would be impossible to reproduce. I can’t remember which year’s lineup included Newfoundland’s Hey Rosetta! (Exclamation mark theirs, not mine). But it must have been somewhere in the middle of our six-summer run. This song, released around that time, really encapsulates the complicated feeling of moving imperceptibly from one stage of life to another. What makes this a beautiful song: 1. The slow, purposeful piano really does come across with the calm solemnity of a psalm. 2. In the second half, the lonely pianist is joined by a few other instruments (this was, after all, a seven-piece band) but only briefly, before they respectfully step out of the spotlight. 3. The lyrics are mournful but reassuring, reminding us that although we may head towards something new and unknown, eventually “your eyes will adjust” and “the fear that you feel will set you free.” Recommended listening activity: Making a playlist featuring one song released in each year you’ve been alive. Spotify. The post Week 780: “Psalm” by Hey Rosetta! appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week .…

http://www.beautifulsongoftheweek.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/William-French-Blue-Heron.mp3 When my kids were tiny, we bought them a bird book. One of those books where the kid can press a button and hear what the pictured bird sounds like. Our kids were captivated by the bird calls these buttons summoned forth, especially the ones they recognized from the neighbourhood. For my part, I wasn’t captivated so much by the bird songs, but by another bit of information the book gave: the birds’ scientific names. You know; those Latin- or Greek-derived names meant to standardize animal names across the world. I couldn’t get over how ridiculous some of them were. How can I concentrate on reading to my kids when I find out that the bird I’ve been calling a Robin all these years is discussed in scientific circles as Turdus Migratorius? How about the Great Horned Owl, officially known by the considerably less-cool name Bubo Virginianus? And it turns out that the book wasn’t just picking the weirdest ones, either. There seem to be more birds with wacky names than with normal ones. A crane called Bugeranus. A Finch called Poospiza Hypochondria. And, as if trying to outdo the Robin, a Thrush known to scientists as Turdus Maximus. However, there is one bird whose name isn’t simply giggle fuel for adolescent boys: the Great Blue Heron. The most majestic member of the Heron family, its scientific name is Ardea Herodius. The first part is the Latin name for Heron, and the second part is Greek for…Heron. That’s correct: the Heron Heron. It is truly the Heron to end all Herons. And I’m guessing that William French is a fan. What makes this a beautiful song: 1. Every other bar, there’s an extra kick drum thrown in between beats one and two. It makes me think of those big wing-flaps that birds with particularly impressive wingspans will do every so often, just to show off. 2. At 2:11, everything gets very still for a moment, like a heron standing mid-river waiting for a fish. 3. At 2:46, a new chord structure comes in, striding along like a heron at a stately one-chord-per-bar pace. Recommended listening activity: Measuring your wingspan. Spotify. The post Week 779: “Blue Heron” by William French appeared first on Beautiful Song Of The Week .…