Merry Christmas, Buffalo, and Monteverdi

[theholyinnocent]

Mitch Miller wishes you Merry Christmas from the Great Beyond: Buffalo!

OK. I mentioned to stargazer1960 that I was planning on doing a holiday music post: I was going to upload some holiday songs and whatnot and post a link for downloadage, but I kinda dropped the ball on that. However, I did stumble upon some indie Canada holidaze music that you can download: Ho-Ho-Ho Canada. Enjoy! And nothing's preventing me from YT spammage, obviously.

But here's a true confession: I like classical music. Some of you probably know that already. And something about the holidays makes me want to listen to more Renaissance/Baroque music than usual; it's strange, but it feels very seasonal. Even some opera does as well. One of the first operas I ever saw was Monteverdi's L'incoronazione di Poppea,which remains a favorite. The love duet at the end between Nerone and Poppea is awesome...particularly when Nerone is played by a mezzo-soprano (i.e., a lady, so you have two ladies singing a passionate love duet). Alas, I could find no YT clips featuring two women singing the role that pleased me both visually and musically, so I settled on this clip with Nuria Rial (soprano) and Philippe Jaroussky (countertenor); they sound lovely together, and there is a nice little period-appropriate musical intro before the duet. And if you like, you can close your eyes and pretend it's two ladies.

Happy Holidays, everyone!