#90 The Smell of Thirst

Wait for the strings: there's something in the air–slow strain, infinite waiting, determined pulsation. Combine it with the voice: trembling, soft, thirsty, sad.

Ludwig is so convincing you need to yield to her. Her voice is captivating–this song should never end.

Composer: Gustav Mahler
Work: Rückert-Lieder, II. Ich atmet’ einen linden Duft
Recording: Christa Ludwig, Philharmonia Orchestra, Otto Klemperer

#89 The Smell of Curly Waves

From the whole album, this song fitted best my Amtrak way from Los Angeles to San Diego. Bright green grass with yellow flowers, small houses above cliffs, and indefinite calm ocean with irregular waves. I can smell the waves in the song, its rhytm is so floating, moving, and jumping–it's so curly.

Gefors is a Swedish composer living in Lund, the city I have a lot of memories of. Today, however, he and von Otter hit the mood of south California.

Composer: Hans Gefors
Work: Lydias sånger, V. Sfinxen
Recording: Anne Sofie von Otter, Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Kent Nagano

#88 The Smell of Eternity

It's very easy to love Credo. The heavenly choir parts, the fight with eternal fires, the primitive and subtle and humble piano line, so clean and pure it goes to heaven in the finale.

Here Pärt reaches the same eternity Bach does: the shivering, the light, the magic touch of something not coming from this world. It is easy to love Credo: it's about love.

Composer: Arvo Pärt
Work: Credo
Recording: Hélène Grimaud, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Choir, Esa-Pekka Salonen

#87 The Smell of Skelet

This is really just the skelet, no muscles, no fat. The symphony moves in the way it should move but there's nothing bold, no attack, no full body. The sound colors are magical, very raw, like if the primitive colors are not fully blended yet.

Grossmann's account is historical one: playing Eroica on period instruments, in the same place and with the same number of musicians as on its premiere in 1804. It's great to hear the music skeleton but the fortes are not the best ones and actually the whole dynamic range of Ensemble 28 is flat. With only eight violins, I'd expect their pianissimos to be mysterious.

Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
Work: Symphony No 3, III. Scherzo
Recording: Ensemble 28, Daniel Grossmann

#86 The Smell of Butchery

I smell flesh here. Animal rhythms and sequences but the animals are dead. Not a lovely view but an interesting one. Shocking at first sight but one becomes dull soon.

Stanze is Berio's last composition. This movement–or room–is based on a poem by Alfred Brendel saying that the voice of God can be found in Tritsch-Tratsch Polka by Johann Strauss, Jr.

Composer: Luciano Berio
Work: Stanze, IV. Alfred Brendel
Recording: Dietrich Henschel, Orchestre de Paris, Christoph Eschenbach