The two hundred and thirtieth album: #230 Joni MItchell - Blue
It might be the specific ordering of the book, but we're getting more folk songs in the list lately. Blue is the first of four of Joni Mitchell's albums on the list and provides some more welcome folk songs, a mix of the more maudlin works and upbeat songs occasionally verging towards rock. Musically it's lovely, the mix of instruments, underscores the songs nicely, sometimes just supporting Joni's songs while in others, such as Carey, feeling like its own story. Then the lyrics work well. There are no calls to change the world here, instead these feel like personal stories, lamenting the end of a relationship as well as celebrating better times, and I think there's something to find in most of these songs - something that connects. It's a lovely album - nothing big, but it works well at this size.
The eighty-seventh classical recording: #616 Arnold Schoenberg - Gurrelieder
Two music performances in a day? Yeah, it was time to dust off this list following everything else that's been going on in the world. Not just that, we're starting with a two hour performance of various poems, with a full orchestra, solo vocalists and a choir. While partially telling a love story, there's no other performance - it's purely the music and the songs, and although it feels it could be an opera at times, the staging doesn't work that way. The music is big and majestic, creating and invoking the fantasy landscape this seems to take place as a medieval romance.
It's a grandiose work, requiring a large orchestra and a large chorus, which means the entire work feels big. It feels like an intentional choice, in part because the story could be smaller, but intentionally isn't made to be that way. It certainly has its tender moments - the speaker's part feels that way - but it's that much bigger at other times, which is what makes this special.