The Artistry of Sting: Five Great Songs

Gordon Sumner, the English songwriter and musician known as Sting, celebrates his 70th birthday tomorrow. Between 1977 and 1986, Sting was the lead singer, bass guitarist, and principal songwriter for the band, The Police. Later, his solo career blossomed. Sting’s songs are filled with fascinating harmonic complexity and depth. Here are a few examples. There are many others that are equally interesting, including the jazz-infused Englishman in New York (a track which features Branford Marsalis on soprano …

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Winter Chill in Purcell’s "The Fairy-Queen"

This week we’ve explored musical depictions of winter, from Samuel Barber’s Christmas-themed Twelfth Night to Tchaikovsky’s youthfully inventive First Symphony. Perhaps no music captures the desolate gloom of winter more vividly than Now Winter Comes Slowly from the fourth act of English composer Henry Purcell’s 1692 opera, The Fairy-Queen. In this case, the term “opera” should be applied loosely. The Fairy-Queen, an anonymous adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, still has one foot firmly planted in the world …

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Love Songs Through Time

Romantic love, with its often irrational sea of complex emotions, has long been a rich source of inspiration in music. With Valentines Day just around the corner, let’s listen to a selection of love songs from the Renaissance to the present day. Most of these songs would have been considered popular music when they were first written. Sampling this list, I was struck by how many great love songs are tinged with …

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