Silent Night is the most recorded song, in more than 300 languages. Last year, through an ad from Erste Bank of Austria, the visual story of Joseph Mohr, a village priest in Oberndorf, Austria, and music teacher Franz Xaver Gruber, who composed and performed the song on Christmas Eve in 1818 during a time of hardship following the Napoleonic Wars, was depicted. The film highlights how the simple song spread globally, including performances before the Austrian Emperor in 1822, its broadcast during the first-ever radio entertainment in America in 1906, a moment of peace between German and English soldiers during World War I in 1914, and its transmission to the Skylab 4 space station in 1973.

Embrujo Mestizo performs Isaac Albéniz's Asturias in a classical guitar and castanets arrangement. (For the next two weeks or so I'll post very infrequently since the little one is on school break.)

I'll end the day with Yuja Wang in 2007, when she was 19, practising Mozart's Turkish March (Arkady Volodos' arrangement) along with her Carmen encore. Have a good evening!

I didn't post opera in quite some time. Natalie Dessay and Anne Sofie von Otter singing the Presentation of the Rose scene from Strauss’s “Der Rosenkavalier.” Vienna State Opera, 1994.

For today's lunch break, Callum Au plays Hoagy Carmichael's "Stardust". Not necessarily my usual post, but today I listened to anything from heavy metal to acid trance, and now it's time to slow down a bit. That being said, I wish you all a great day!

For the Jazz lovers, I'll dedicate today's last post to Joe Pass playing Satin Doll. Great chemistry with Bob Magnusson (bass) and Joe Porcaro (drums). Have a beautiful evening!

255 years ago today, Ludwig van Beethoven was born in the city of Bonn, Germany. Because the Symphony No. 9 premiered at the Theatre am Kärntnertor in Vienna, on May 7th 1824, as a small homage, I post the finale of this symphony with director Riccardo Muti and the Philharmonic of Vienna. I wish you all a beautiful day!

Today's goodbye and "wish I'd be there" moment is with Itzhak Perlman playing the third movement of Brahms' Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77, with The Philarmonia Orchestra of London and conducted by Lawrence Foster. (1978) 👏👏👏 And here is the YouTube link for the full concert.

Anne Queffélec performing Marcello/Bach BWV 974, Adagio. The Oboe Concerto in D minor, S D935, was composed by Alessandro Marcello (1673–1747), a Venetian noble who often published his works under the pseudonym Eterio Stinfalico. Bach, during his Weimar period (1708–1717), transcribed the oboe concerto for solo keyboard, creating a harpsichord arrangement known as BWV 974.

For the Jazz lovers, an excerpt from John Coltrane Quartet's “My Favourite Things”, Comblain-La-Tour, 1965.