We begin with the Prelude and then the opening scene, the witches’ chorus. These two tracks are a foretaste of what you should see and hear at The Grange in 2022. You read it here first. Although written early, Verdi’s visionary opera was groundbreaking, jumping 50 years ahead in tone and substance. It is well suited to The Grange, written originally for the Teatro della Pergola in Florence, on whose stage I have sung early opera, and whose dimensions are not massively different from ours. Maestro Gianandrea Noseda writes, “The biggest achievement of Macbeth is the continuous flow of it – it doesn’t break down into arias, cabalettas and so on. Verdi was seeking truth and reality, and sometimes reality is not beautiful, but painful. Macbeth is the closest that Verdi got to ‘real life’ at that time.”

An early Covid casualty, Bill Withers’ short musical career in the 70s puts him at the heart of the American songbook, his deceptively gentle songs dealing with some of the painful politics and personal heartache of his vibrant generation. This song is possibly an ideal lockdown scenario.

There is a current Twitter poll to establish the best Choral Evensong anthem. Here is a likely winner. My brother had the good fortune to have William Harris as his first choirmaster at St Georges, Windsor.

An enduring international hit, written in 1917, and heard since in all shapes and sizes. Its first popular incarnation was on a theatre organ played by Ethel Smith, and a decade later sung by Carmen Miranda opposite Groucho Marx in “Copacobana’. Here the full virtuosic power of the best horn players in the UK reveals it in astonishing rhythmic and chromatic brilliance.

A telling musical reminder of the worst of what we have been living through these past months. Here is the grief-laden 2nd verse of one of Bach’s earliest cantatas (possibly his 2nd), and the first example of narrative word-painting in his music. “No-one could defeat death”. The elegiac sustained Hallelujah at the end is the polar opposite of most settings of this word.

She styled herself “The Queen of the Blues’”, was one of the jazz greats and covered most genres from soul to RB. This was her first pop hit in the 50s.

I never want this to end. Its energy, majestic, innovative, playful, life-enhancing, never ceases to give an emotional boost. One feels as if one is on a grand adventure into a new land, exciting but unthreatening, bursting with new ideas and wonderful melodies.

One of the memorable introspective moments in this rock-opera about a disenchanted young man in the 60s. Youthful disenchantment is likely to be an unintended consequence of the current tyranny.

In a galaxy far far away …. Goldoni’s comic play is rich fare for Haydn. A familiar story of an old rich buffoon father blocking any marriage overtures towards his delightful daughters and their maid, and concerning himself mostly with his abiding hobby, astronomy. Lunar scenes are staged which he trustingly views through his telescope and complicated tricks are successfully played. Much fun is had and three weddings ensue. I had a great time some years ago, being one of the young ne’er-do-well courtiers in a production in the Planetarium in Belém, near Lisbon. This is a dazzling coloratura aria sung by Flaminia, the second daughter.

Nothing more to add.

Here is a spacious setting of some verses from the Marian Hymn, Ave maris stella (‘Hail Bright star of the ocean’). The full Vespers of Monteverdi might have been performed in his lifetime, and possibly in St Marks’ Venice, where he was Maestro di Cappella for 30 years. In this recording, you hear the space of that building, and possibly smell the tang of the incense wafting through the ether. It ends with a momentous and overwhelmingly affecting ‘Amen’.

Featuring our third chanteuse this week, these outrageous lyrics by Johnny Mercer penned in 1978 drop armfuls of names of New York celebrities. It requires close attention. These give the flavour, “I’m not a bit ashamed of it, My rapier wit kept Serge Koussevitsky in line’, and “And as for Lady Bevan, We were both in labor that’s true.’

This Viennese prodigy wrote this his first opera when 22. He moved to the US in 1934 and, of course, became one of the founding pioneers of Hollywood film music. The city of the title is Bruges. This aria is written originally as a soprano/tenor duet, but often performed, as here, as a recital aria. ‘Joy, that near to me remains, Come to me, my true love. Night sinks into the grove You are my light and day. Anxiously beats heart on heart Hope itself soars heavenward.’

My first playlist request, and the first choice with which I was not intimately acquainted. Thank you Becka. A transcendent response to his children’s deaths, over several years, this substantial music established his international reputation. The mediaeval Latin poem in praise of the Virgin Mary is one of the most frequently set in music. Its lyrics lend themselves to singing. Here is the long opening symphonic movement.