In these “always on” times, music with the quality to bring us to a quieter space, whether it is baroque, romantic or new-age should be part of our listening repertoire. Today, I like to share pieces of “soul music” – one contemporary, the other from the classical era.

The contemporary piece is a song called Common Ground written by the award-winning American songwriter, Jeanette Alexander. Listen to the pastoral quality of the melody as it floats gently across the aural landscape.

The second piece is Albinoni’s Adagio in G Minor, performed by the Copernicus Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Horst Johm. Although many people have heard Adagio before, it is likely they can’t quite pinpoint the composer. Tomaso Albinoni is a contemporary of J.S. Bach and was as famous in his days as Bach, Corelli and Vivaldi. Much of his work was lost during the latter years of World War II but in 1945, Remo Giazotto, a Milanese musicologist travelled to Desden to complete his biography of Albinoni and his listing of Albinoni’s music. There, he discovered a fragment of manuscript and from this fragment, Giazotto reconstructed the now-famous Adagio.

Common Ground (Jeanette Alexander. Genre: New-age)

Adagio in G Minor (Tomaso Albinino, 1671-1751. Genre: Baroque)