What would happen if you paused, just for a moment, and sat in stillness with yourself? If you took a moment to catch your breath, to use your imagination, or to notice something beautiful in your surroundings? Life can be chaotic, busy, and stressful, but swirling around in the whirlwind with you are moments of calm, moments of beauty, moments of gratitude. You just have to slow down for a moment long enough to catch them. This is that moment. A Mindful Moment.

Mindful Moment: Evening Meditation Music
Ralph Vaughan Williams, The Lark Ascending, Ukraine National Symphony Orchestra, Solomiya Ivakhiv  violin

This is a guided meditation. Crafted for you, for this specific evening moment. It's paired with a select piece of classical music to help guide you through your journey. I invite you to close your eyes for the meditation, however, it is accompanied by a video if having a visual is helpful for you.

Below, you will find a curated playlist to help you deepen your practice.

Evening Meditation Suggested Playlist:
Leo Brouwer, Afro-Cuban Lullaby, Manuel Barrueco guitar
Max Richter, On The Nature of Daylight, Max Richter Orchestra
Ying-Hsueh Chen, Nocturne, Ying-Hsueh Chen  percussion
Jane Antonia, Last Light, Vicky Chow  piano

Thank you for sharing some time and space for this Mindful Moment.

Mindful Moments written and produced by Melanie Renate. Video by Vernon Neal.

What would happen if you paused, just for a moment, and sat in stillness with yourself? If you took a moment to catch your breath, to use your imagination, or to notice something beautiful in your surroundings? Life can be chaotic, busy, and stressful, but swirling around in the whirlwind with you are moments of calm, moments of beauty, moments of gratitude. You just have to slow down for a moment long enough to catch them. This is that moment. A Mindful Moment.

Mindful Moment: Midday Meditation Music
Julie Cooper, Contemplation Suite: Day, Oculus Ensemble

This is a guided meditation. Crafted for you, for this specific midday moment. It's paired with a select piece of classical music to help guide you through your journey. I invite you to close your eyes for the meditation, however, it is accompanied by a video if having a visual is helpful for you.

Below, you will find a curated playlist to help you deepen your practice.

Midday Meditation Suggested Playlist:
Valentin Silvestrov, Hymn, Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra
Claude Debussy, Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun, Minnesota Orchestra, Adam Kuenzel  flute
Philip Glass, Closing, La Pieta
Traditional Donna Nobis Pacem (Give us Peace), Yo-Yo Ma, cello

Thank you for sharing some time and space for this Mindful Moment.

Mindful Moments written and produced by Melanie Renate. Video by Vernon Neal.

What would happen if you paused, just for a moment, and sat in stillness with yourself? If you took a moment to catch your breath, to use your imagination, or to notice something beautiful in your surroundings? Life can be chaotic, busy, and stressful, but swirling around in the whirlwind with you are moments of calm, moments of beauty, moments of gratitude. You just have to slow down for a moment long enough to catch them. This is that moment. A Mindful Moment.

Mindful Moment: Morning Meditation Music
Gabriel Olafs, Draumheimar, Gabriel Olafs piano

This is a guided meditation. Crafted for you, for this specific morning moment. It's paired with a select piece of classical music to help guide you through your journey. I invite you to close your eyes for the meditation, however, it is accompanied by a video if having a visual is helpful for you.

Below, you will find a curated playlist to help you deepen your practice.

Morning Meditation Suggested Playlist:
Eric Whitacre, Lux Aurumque, Orphei Drangar
Amy Beach, By the Still Waters, Isata Kanneh-Mason  piano
Steve Reich, Duet, Scoring Berlin, Mari Samuelsen  violin
Vladimir Martynov, The Beatitudes, Kronos Quartet

Thank you for sharing some time and space for this Mindful Moment.

Mindful Moments written and produced by Melanie Renate. Video by Vernon Neal.

It's the most seductive point of the fall season: leaves are just starting to change, the pumpkin spice lattes and Octoberfest beers are coming out, and the days are crisp and bright without being actually chilly. "This is my favorite season!" everyone seems to be saying.

The weather will get a little more extreme soon enough, but while we're at this rosy moment, let's seize the inspiration to load up a playlist with autumn-appropriate classical music. Here are a few ideas of mine (excluding spooky Halloweenish music, which is really its own genre).

Leo Sowerby, Comes Autumn Time

This sparkling 1916 overture — originally for organ, later orchestrated — was inspired by a Bliss Carmen poem called "Autumn."

Antonio Vivaldi, L'autunno violin concerto from The Four Seasons

The quintessential fall composition, this music became familiar to me at a young age because my parents loved Alan Alda's 1981 film The Four Seasons, which was soundtracked with Vivaldi's music. In the film, this Baroque concerto plays while the characters hang out on a picturesque college campus that's depicted as being in New England — but which, I've just now discovered, was actually in Georgia! Clearly the northern half of the U.S. does not have a monopoly on autumn splendor.

Joseph Haydn, Autumn section of The Seasons

The second most-famous season-themed piece of classical music, this oratorio celebrates autumn on a somewhat grander scale than Vivaldi's concerto. While the spring and summer sections are mostly about the wonders of nature, autumn and winter celebrate the things that people do during those seasons—like harvesting, hunting, canoodling, and of course boozing ("joyful, joyful, the liquor flows").

Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky, September - November movements of The Seasons

Surprisingly seldom heard given the fame of its composer and how enjoyable it is to hear, The Seasons was published serially over the course of 1876 in the magazine Nouvellist: one solo piano piece per month. September's piece (below) is called The Hunt, October's is Autumn Song, and November's is Troika.

Ralph Vaughan Williams, Autumn section of Folk Songs of the Four Seasons

First performed in 1950 but not recorded until 2009, Vaughan Williams's "folk song cantata" was composed for a women's choral festival; the composer was pleased to have the opportunity to write a piece specifically designed for amateur singers. The Autumn section of the cantata features the elegiac "Unquiet Grave" (in which, as the composer put it, "the young maiden meets her dead lover among the storms and cold winds of autumn") bookended by two harvest songs.

Joseph Joachim Raff, Symphony No. 10: "To Autumntime"

A great suggestion from reader Thomas Maresh, who writes that the German-Swiss Raff (1822-1882) "is a relatively unknown composer, but in his day he rivaled Brahms, and now has become my favorite composer."

Charles Ives, The Unanswered Question

I was telling American Public Media's Steve Staruch that I like to listen to Ives in the fall, in part because autumn reminds me of New England and Ives was such a quintessential New England composer. "The Unanswered Question," agreed Steve, "goes well in the fall."

John Adams, Shaker Loops

John Adams is another famous New England composer, raised in Massachusetts and New Hampshire. The humming strings in this early masterpiece are meant to represent the Shakers' practice of vibrating violently during religious worship, but the sound also evokes leaves rustling in the autumn wind.

George Whitefield Chadwick, String Quartet No. 4

A felicitous suggestion from reader Trevor Woggon: a charming piece by a composer emblematic of the "New England School" of American composers.

Alexander Glazunov, Autumn from The Seasons

Breaking from the relentlessly reflective vibe of much other autumn-themed music, Glazunov's 1899 ballet score opens its post-summer section with an exuberant burst of fall color. Thanks to reader Michael Whealy for suggesting this musical Octoberfest.

Samuel Barber and Edgar Meyer, Violin Concertos

Blame the marketers: with a cover photo depicting violinist Hilary Hahn leaning on a tree against a backdrop of yellow leaves, Hahn's 2000 recording of these concerti with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra has always been one of my go-to autumn listens. The compositions complement the season—and each other—as well, bright and lucid yet unmistakably melancholy.

Gustav Holst, St. Paul's Suite

A different St. Paul, this one in West London. Fall is back-to-school season, and this famous string suite written by Holst for his students at St. Paul's Girls' School makes going to school almost seem like fun.

George Winston, Autumn

Okay, so George Winston isn't classical. If your musical tastes, however, include a dash of new age—or "rural folk," as Winston prefers to say—this seasonal album is wonderful.

Aaron Copland, Our Town

This music written by Copland for the 1940 film is contemplative yet majestic, capturing the feeling we'd all like to have at the end of a year that's had (as they do) its ups and downs. You can picture Grovers Corners, New Hampshire if you like, but this piece also works—moreso than some of Copland's other Americana—as pure music. Copland's own recording, with the London Symphony Orchestra (love the Grant Wood cover), is the gold standard.

Einojuhani Rautavaara, Autumn Gardens

This Finnish composer's distinctive floating, spiritual tone captures the season's magical promise, largely casting dark shadows aside.

Ludwig Van Beethoven, String Quartet No. 15

This quartet is commonly played in November because its third movement is often known as the Hymn of Thanksgiving: composed following Beethoven's recovery from a near-fatal illness, it carries the inscription "Holy Song of Thanksgiving by a Convalescent to the Divinity, in the Lydian Mode."

Christopher Simpson, fall suite from The 4 Seasons

This Baroque composer is remembered for his lissome viola da gamba compositions, and his 4 Seasons suites put that instrument front and center. The autumn section is a quiet and dignified, yet warm, ode that evokes a feeling of cozy contentment. (He also wrote pieces dedicated to each month of the year, but unfortunately those works have become obscure and recordings are difficult to find.)

Johannes Brahms, Symphony No. 4

This is another piece Steve Staruch suggested for the fall. It has a persistently autumnal quality, he told me—"but with the sun still shining brightly." I don't hear as much sun in this symphony as Steve does, but I agree that it's an apt fit for fall—late fall, when the ground is bare, the leaves are stripped from the trees, and dusk is falling more and more quickly every day.

Arnold Bax, November Woods

The British composer wrote this tone poem in 1917, as his love affair with pianist Harriet Cohen was ending. That sad event certainly influenced the dark flavor of the piece, but it's also a gloriously cinematic composition with brilliant orchestral color that speaks to the splendor of nature in one of its most dramatic months.

See also this curated autumn playlist.

Autumn is here! We've put together a playlist of classical music, including selections from Vivaldi, Beethoven and Grieg, to accompany the cooler weather and turning leaves. Listen now, and enjoy the sounds of a colorful season.

If you've ever listened to YourClassical's Peaceful Piano or Relax streams, there's a good chance you've heard Erik Satie's Gymnopédies. As a matter of fact, if you've ever listened to any playlist, CD, record, or tape promising "relaxation," there's a good chance you've heard this music.

What, exactly, makes Satie's three piano pieces so entrancing? Why have generations kept coming back to them? It's appealing music, certainly — but it's also unique, in a way that's made it at once highly popular and highly influential.

Among the repertoire's great composers, Satie wasn't exactly a prodigy: when the boy entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1879, his teachers were decidedly unimpressed by his technique and work ethic. He left and came back in 1885 (then age 19), with the same result. Three years later, he published the first of these now-famous piano compositions.

The Gymnopédies may seem the height of refined relaxation today, but in their time they were deeply subversive. They defied classical harmonies and structures, in keeping with the composer's generally iconoclastic spirit.

The pieces' title came from a made-up profession Satie invented for himself when asked what his occupation was. "I am a gymnopedist," he said. The word was highly esoteric — and the following year, Satie gave that title to three short piano pieces. What is a gymnopedist? One who writes the Gymnopédies, of course.

The pieces were accompanied by a piece of verse written by Satie's friend J.P. Contamine de Latour, and it remains unclear whether the poem or the music was written first. The word "gymnopédie" appears in the poem, and had previously been identified by Rousseau as a piece of music to which young Spartans danced naked.

By avoiding any conventional term for the pieces (sonatas, préludes, etc.), Satie cut himself loose from any preexisting restrictions on what, exactly, they would be. The same approach applied to Satie's other pieces, and he experimented with avant-garde compositional touches like directing that his piece Vexations be played 840 times in a row.

Satie argued for French composers to throw off the heavy mantle of German Romanticism, making him a critical influence on the evolution of 20th-century music in his home country and beyond. In 1898, Debussy published an orchestration that brought an impressionistic touch to bear on Satie's music, illustrating a facility for achieving great effect with spare, spacious instrumental color.

John Cage was a passionate fan of Satie's, and through Cage as well as other mid-century figures, Satie helped provide the template for what we now call "ambient music." Cage was particularly drawn to the proto-conceptual aspects of Satie's work: the endless repetitions, the floating structures.

Cage seized on Satie's concept of musique d'ameublement, a French term often translated as "furniture music" — in other words, background music. The idea of music not meant for the foreground wasn't new (Haydn, for example, knew darn well his chamber music wasn't always going to command rapt attention), but Satie deliberately structured some of his compositions to be repetitive and unobtrusive, while substantial enough to have more of a presence than a ticking clock.

The ambient music of Brian Eno, the entire genre of new age music, and vast swaths of electronic music spanning genres owe a debt to Satie. Meanwhile, as Satie's aesthetic was becoming increasingly influential, the Gymnopédies were proliferating through popular culture in their own right. Blood, Sweat & Tears won a Grammy for their 1968 interpretation.

The Gymnopédies also featured in movies including The Royal Tenenbaums and My Dinner with Andre, where the piano pieces soundtracked Wallace Shawn's contemplative cab ride through New York City. Combining historical resonance with a distinctly contemporary flavor, composed by a musician's musician, the Gymnopédies perfectly captured the film's searching and pained, yet sophisticated, tone.

Simple enough for a child, sophisticated enough for a brainy independent film, the Gymnopédies today are music for all occasions — except, ironically, a dance party.

We asked listeners to write poems inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven's Symphony No. 6: II. Scene by the Brook. Here’s what they told us.

Untitled

i look up, i look down
at the small little fair at the edge of my town
for at the center of all the fun
something catches my eye, and i start to run
i run to the Ferris wheel that goes up so high
i want to go on it so badly i could die
so i reach into my pocket and pull out a penny
but to get on the wheel it would take so many
so i sit on the ground and imagine the feeling
the feeling of floating is so appealing
i close my eyes and think of a plan
and just like that my plan has began
i stand up and walk to the gate
i try to look taller and not out of place
i reach my hand out and push it open
a man turns around at the sight of my motion
he looks down at me
and says very sternly
its this way to the Ferris wheel little child
my eyes go wide, and he just smiled

— Sophie Milstein, Shorewood

Untitled

spring
beginnings
soft
cold
shoots of flowers amid
the snow
grass;
green
frail
trembling
tiny buds;
springing up on trees
reminding us
there is hope left
amid the cold
desolation

— Jay Coleman, Madison

Untitled

Glittering flittering sunshine
Stopping for a breath
Only to rise again
Amidst the fields of green

— Linda Alford, Austin

Beethoven's Yellow

I much prefer the ocean,
but at times, a river will do just fine.
The river is where the coot and loon confer,
while the cuckoo finds a nest to steal
near the subtler flint swells.

To stand on its bank and say I am,
resolute as a salmon swimming upstream,
is to know that you are small,
yet willing to float onward,
a migration of one drop of our multitude.

Where does this water go?
It ripples in broken thirds
under sturdy bridges and sylvan spheres
before retreating in service
into the cave of the heart.

— Valerie Little, Minneapolis

Crossing the Ocean

Crossing the ocean
The vast waters
Of mind
Under a black sky
That's covering the world.

Crossing now, crossing
To the other shore
Where the Spring sun is shining
Where roses are red perfumes
Where the air
Is at peace.

The ocean of reality
Is a trickle of water
If we're willing
To cross.

The other shore is just one step away.

Sacred water
Crystalline water is this
No one can deny it
But

It just takes one step
To cross this ocean

When we want to get back to ourselves
When we want to begin again.

— Mario Zetino, Santa Ana, El Salvador

The Cabin

Where are you?
I was looking for you.
I heard something by the brook
but when I looked I twisted my neck.

What a lovely day
but you aren't here.
I hope you are ok.

Wow, look at that sky!
The clouds moving by, so slow
A gray cloud there, a couple drops.
Now bright, so bright, a light warm breeze.
Nature can be so lovely.

I think I can see you in the distance.
Yes, what are you doing?
Kneeling it looks like.
Oh, you are up now
Looking into where the woodpecker had been eating.
You are coming back.

It's just so beautiful I want everything to stop:
I want to live in this moment forever.

— Robert LeClairee, Fridley

Haiku X 3

Brown, speckled brook trout
seen swimming this way, than that
current reflection.

Dark, vertical bars
yellow red adipose fins
prized for your beauty.

Spawning in spring seeps
with the current, and against.
Reflect the future.

— Barbara Klug, Minneapolis

Awaken

buried and secure
in warm mother earth
why should the seed crack and sprout a fragile stem
yet it does
seduced by sunshine
and the promise of living large
it risks frost and wind
and the crush of feet
it grows
like its ancestors have always grown
finding life in peril
sweeter still
than a hole in the ground

— Kristina Bendikas, London

Untitled

Patches of green grass
Appear with April snowmelt
Mixed by sun and clouds

— Sharon Hulett, Minnetonka

Untitled

I have left Vienna for the goods.
Promised to the free green grass.
I hear the birds change my path.
Listen to the water take away the day.
I walk for hours down to the end of the way.
Heavy feet have started to lose the weight of the day.
A fresh breeze takes April's name to town.
Never did I touch that stone first thrown.
Nobody to blame as the trees bend low.
Friends with hands shaking the new leaves awake.
Thicker grass starts to strangle my day.
I can still see thru my Coke bottle glasses.
The river is awake today.
Listen close to the rocks being rubbed away.
Young voices trying to explain the bees knees.
Youth was wasted down by the banks.
Blame the color green and all those spring things.
I can still hear the chorus repeat and refrain.
Over the rocks now dull.
Under the bridge still haunted by trolls.
Young German woman selling therapy.
Freud is still hypnotized by the water.
I lie on the velvet red sofa, counting all the new birds.
Yes my little pigeon, the night is coming fast.
A new speed to the water falling with no fear.
I heard a rumor of a man.
He walked on water.
Talked to the trees still glistening.
Skipped rocks across the depths.
I'm stuck staring at the water of me.
Surface tension and a hint of tomorrow.
Listen close to the night with no please.
Just a full moon on the days the water took over.

— Derek Kostka, Rochester

JAS

reaching out 3 souls
Touched through time

The web is formed supporting friendship
Growth forms circles of strength

Circles interlock, bonded forever
Roads ungulate, intertwined, pathways cross

Surrender our insecurities, embrace the love of friendship
3 souls touch, circles strengthens, no weak link

Out reach our hands, trust the distance, locked forever

Intertwined through the circle of friendship

— Ann Shadiow, Boise ID

Untitled

Imagine, this wintry day, by a tranquil brook,
Formed somewhere from melting snow and filtered seep.
It's a patient Spring that quietly awaits,
Taking measured breaths, pining for warmth, sure to come.
A gentle breeze, reeds half tall
Swirls of life beneath reflections of overhanging trees,
Butterflies suspended on bright, reticulated wings,
And songbirds in chorus, up and to the left,
Complete the portrait in my mind.
My soul awakens to the joys that await
When common pleasures will again
Subdue the solitude of sheltering in this place.
Spring will come, it never forgets.
It's warmth and embrace will still comfort us.
But for now, my imagination
Will have to do.

— A J Smith, Wayzata

My little Hami (granddaughter)

Holding hands across the world as
little brown fingers touch a screen;
putting an eternity into view.
I am here
she is there.
I listen with my fingers
as her's tap and poke my soul.

— Richard Graham, Hastings

Untitled

Who through the tr(y)(I)dents
to bleed out the life of fresh, new
waters. Flowing from the mountain heights
carving little knot(let)s and hides
for life to grow and scenes to flow
The sounds of natures music and
Life. Unsalted by Poseidon's hand
But the gentle hand from Persephone's
Weeping at her bands, or the dirge
turned to a playful scourge, Upon
a dainty brook, such a forgotten dream
which only battered scholars
even seek to sing. Each owing all
to broken dreams, still lived
somehow in joy, as if to call in to being
through the singing along with natures throng
until the brooks clear waters heal what was
gone. but not forgotten, misremembered
simply because two sides of a coin never meet
dancing after each other
on opposite sides not
knowing their wholEness
only living for the afterimage
of the Music of the Spheres

cast me not in to a fountain of lost dreams
but into this brook, the current which
carries this curs rant to his witch
still, unfamiliar, kept spinning
to turn the gears, the brooklet flows

Who through the bolt the set the earth to weep
I do not know. But standing by the brook
I cry along, in my heart alone, My face frozen
tears held back by the Joy in the seeing
of all the other things, seen
when one sits and weeps
to simplicity.

— Peter Eschweiler, Golden Valley

A scene by the brook

Oblivious to the storm to come
wandering along a cascading brook
at the edge of a forest
and thicket of brushwood.

Listening to what eyes see
creating an expression of existence
a sweet sonification of life.

Setting a leisurely pace
along swift, light-dappled water
swollen by winter snow run off.

Like the sweet sensation
of musical triplets
the water tumbles
refracting light and
reflecting sound.

An underlying innerplay of motion
repeating, smoothing stones
provoking a rush of echoes.

Attention alternating between
the understory of the brush
and thrumming water
as nightingales, quails, and cuckoos
engage in light conversation.

Whisking along
toward repeated
crescendos and diminuendos
of activity.

Another brief birdsong
then a slowing
and reluctant
retreat to reality.

— Timothy Langhorst, Perrysburg

Untitled

It's not the glacier's imperative,
this bubbling,
this flow

It's more a question of
ebb, of moving
through, of thought drift

And the glimpse of sky water,
surface shimmer,
watercolour of
leaf and cloud

So, within this wat'ry progress,
eddy me for an hour or two
Let me spin without purpose in
dapple and reflection

Then loose me,
lose me into
earth's infinitesimal
angle, the float
down
stream

— Katrin Talbot, Madison

Stream

Pulse
Temp
Breath

Measuring
Charting

Tending

Reaching
Holding not
yet Here

Essential
Ones
Abiding

By the Stream
Building Boats
Sailing Hope

— Kristi Larsen, Atlanta

Before the Storm

Far from the clamor in our streets
and the clutter in our lives,
there is a place of quiet rest
where all is well,
near to the heart of God
where peace reigns supreme
and love remains sublime.

As a refugee from anxiety,
I fled to that place of grace often
and found solace in its stunning splendor
beside the bubbling brook.

Then came corona.
The virus broke in
and pandemonium broke out.
There was no escape anymore.
There was no sanctuary anywhere.
Peace was shattered everywhere.

But love remains supreme.
Hope retains its promise.
The eternal triumphs over the temporal.
For the storm shall pass,
and wounded healers shall emerge
to rebuild the sanctuary of grace once more
in accordance with the celestial harmony
of a pastoral symphony.

— Werner Lange, Newton Falls

Untitled

I stand and stretch my arms above;
This is joy; this is life; this is love!

A gentle valley, green and sown
with gentle grass so short and pure.
I doff my shoes and barefoot run
across the turf that welcomes in
my toes, my sole, my heel, my soul
without a stone or thorn.

Overhead, a perfect sun,
and all around a perfect breeze
that strokes me everywhere and thrills
my body with its power and strength.
I feel that I could run forever
springing quickly like a child;
laughing, jumping, falling down
to roll into the gentle slope
and find a flower above my head
with birdsong in the air.

— Wayne Farmer, Winona

Renaissance Man

I'll show you a picture of who I really am
Some days I'm a lion, some days I'm a lamb
A hopeless romantic in search of a muse
Someone I can love, and not something to use
A Pre-Raphaelite who paints with his words
And longs to one day speak the language of birds
I look to the future, I live in the past
The present is fleeting, it never does last
I'm everything and everyone I have known
I'm joined to the universe, never alone
I see in your eyes the reflection of God
Some think I'm mystical, some think I'm odd
I think of my life as a musical piece
When I am creative I find my release
If you understand me, you could be the one
Let's get out of this cave and walk into the sun

— Mason Green, Savage

Newspaper Boat

On a cloudy day
I set my sorrows in a newspaper boat
And sent it adrift without a life preserver.
As the wind carried it far into the sea
I watched it bob and sway on the grey water
Until it sank under its own weight.

I was glad to be rid of it.

As I stood at the shore
I filled a bright blue bucket
with the water that holds my sorrow,
and carried it home to nurture the flowers
I planted in the window box
Outside the kitchen window.

— Judy Lazar, Eagan

Unfolding

A bud,
One voice, then another, rising
The layers pulsing
Weaving, supporting
A voice soaring, above
The phrases echo, this range, that color
Steady rhythms greening
A bud, opening
Rebirth

— Patricia Norton, Minneapolis

Untitled

Fly free,
Like the seed of dandelions
Taken to the wind.
In the spring,
When Love's Whimsy takes hold,
We'll sit next to the bubbling brook
And listen as the birds
Whistle our cares away.
Fly free-- Our feet in the laughing water,
Our hearts and hands entwined,
The sun on a cloudless day--
Making April forget how to rain.

— Stephanie Gabriel, Madison

Can't your hear?

Can't you hear the running, gurgling water?
rushing down the stream
to the river and off to ocean's shore.
And yet here is calm Serenity;
here is quiet call of Quail
calling us to hear Love more.
In the placid evening, listen, won't you?
hear the voice of Nightingale
Rest my friends; Love, I implore.
And day to day, hope helps us heal
and the Cuckoo bids us sail
along the water's Metaphor.

— Webb, St. Paul

Autumn Leaves

As a child growing up in an area
with very few deciduous trees
I often felt left out when reading about
the autumn rituals of raking leaves
into huge piles, then jumping into them
One fine October day as we walked across
the University campus after band rehearsal
we came upon an ENORMOUS pile of leaves
raked up by the grounds crew before they left for lunch
With reckless, childlike abandon we dropped our
instruments and backpacks in a heap
then proceeded to jump repeatedly into that pile
Rolling, kicking, crunching the glorious golden leaves
until the pile no longer existed
then we collected our things and went to class
Sometimes I wonder what the crew thought when
they returned from lunch to find their work undone
Did they know it was us, or did they blame the wind?

— Ann Maria Mattila, Rock Springs

Listening to 'Scene by the Brook' while walking in the woods

Out back behind my home
There lies a small ravine
Within the snow sits solemnly.

A head full of bothers,
Heart heavy with tomorrows,
There I sit on a downed tree.
Into the snow before me
My boots sink
. In the cold creeps.

I gently close my eyes and let
Beethoven begin:
Limpid waters washing away sorrow
Pale Clouds passing with the breeze
Spring's song seems to stream from the earth
As rejoicing robins dance among leaves.

I raise my head to see
The sun through budding trees
As she shines on the snow before me.

— Dan Kingsbury, Cottage Grove

Scene by the Brook

Come, take a seat by me
And tell me what you see.
The brook begins beyond the hill,
Where nature rests, quiet and still.
The rocky shoreline twists and turns,
Soon, the water begins to churn.
Little waves now sputter and crash,
On our bare feet, water is splashed.
The brook meanders further down,
Its path looks like a crooked frown.
Where water pools the birds can splash,
As we lie down in tall, green grass.
We cast our eyes up to the sky,
And watch a cloud slowly drift by.

— Juliana Schacherer, Litchfield

Untitled

April breeze in sunshine on lakeside trails
Dancing with Mallards, Chipmunks and Cardinals
Silver birch straightly grasps the sky in his hand
Green and yellow meadow like spring's blanket
Warm my heart
Far away from my homeland

— Zhenbiao He, St. Cloud

in the graveyard giving

the rainbows are running late this year
squirming & leaping their way upstream
already stressed & exhausted
from the late lake thaw

like a hoard of anxious pilgrims they trample over the weak & dead
on their way
bloated carcasses float in the foam

belly up
mouths open wide
waiting for one last
communion

the eagles too
are here to find
their own concord
with the divine

feasting at ghost white tails
& milky eyes
the fox
the hawk

even the butterflies
have come to sip
some sort of necessary nectar
from the fat juices of survival

& must
all the while the tardy
continue to leap
& leap again

rapid after rapid
rushing breathless
up & up
as if scaling their way

toward heaven
even though they know
they are very very late
& may never arrive

that perhaps their heaven
will also be that
in the graveyard
giving.

— Audrey Colasanti, Minneapolis

Steady

the brook flows, down at the
pull of gravity, down
over rock, into pools,
moving from source to destiny.

the music flows, forward to
the pull of rhythm, to
melody, into themes
moving from source to destiny.

my life flows, forward to
the call of purpose, down
to challenge, into trust,
moving from source to destiny.

— Wayne Albertson, Richfield

Cadenza

But when I look again
It's not a drop of dew
It's the eye of a bird
Its home my eye
my iris its door
The feathers tickle as they flit through
It brings a different future squirming in its laughing talons
Where bird songs have veto over concrete
Where the brook never brooks being made feverish foul
Where the dew cleanses the bees
Their sting inspiration their honey food for all
No hunger no hoarding a staple shared not sold

— Kel Heyl, St. Paul

To: My Granddaughter

Free again!
Walking trails in favorite woods.
River flowing near..what is that swimming visible to me from above?
Here are more, following the first.
Upstream I follow 'til each is dancing
Round the next turn, now to pause,
Then dancing again!
I wade in too, needing to follow them where they head.
Up above sweet birds sing, flitting here and there, branch to branch.
Sun glinting through leaves.
Now I see it all as one flow, merging swimming-flying!
I fly too: above and below. Dancing with the rhythms of all that is.
Arms open wide to the world that is.
Grateful for this weaving of life forms.
Wanting to be joined, all as one.

— Kay Harris, Minnetonka

Enjoy a calming classical music playlist for relaxation, meditation, and stress relief.

TRACKLIST:

00:00:00 - 00:03:06 Carnival of the Animals: The Swan Camille Saint-Saens Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra Ondrej Lenard, conductor

00:03:06 - 00:09:02 Eine kleine Nachtmusik: Romance Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Onix Chamber Orchestra

00:09:02 - 00:12:04 Lyric Pieces: At the Cradle Edvard Grieg Martin Lapsansky, piano

00:12:04 - 00:18:29 Violin Concerto No. 1: Andamte Johann Sebastian Bach Onix Chamber Orchestra Attila Falvay, violin

00:18:29 - 00:21:06 Sleeping Beauty: Panorama Peter Tchaikovsky Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Ondrej Lenard, conductor

00:21:06 - 00:26:10 Piano Sonata No. 8 "Pathetique": 2nd movement Ludwig van Beethoven Silvio Capova, piano

00:26:10 - 00:33:41 Clarinet Concerto: 2nd movement Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Josef Luptacik, clarinet Bratislava Mozart Academy Richard Edlinger, conductor

00:33:41 - 00:39:34 Guitar Concerto: Largo Antonio Vivaldi Gergely Sarkoezi, guitar Dall'Arco Chamber Orchestra Istvan Parkanyi, conductor

00:39:34 - 00:49:41 Symphony No. 2: 2nd movement Ludwig van Beethoven Zagreb Philharmonic Richard Eglinger, conductor

00:49:41 - 00:55:29 Intermezzo No. 2 Johannes Brahms Laszlo Baranyay, piano

00:55:29 - 00:59:04 Holberg Suite: Sarabande Edvard Grieg Onix Chamber Orchestra

The images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have had us all gazing in wonder at the universe this week, as well as marveling at the achievements of modern science. Steve Seel celebrates in kind on this week’s show, with a program of celestial music ... from Terry Riley, Philip Glass, Johann Johannssen, Sally Beamish, and more.

Hear the pieces your favorite classical hosts turn to when they need calm. Enjoy music specially selected by Steve Staruch, Elena See, Scott Blankenship, Brian Newhouse, Julie Amacher and Andrea Blain.

When life is hectic or you need a break from the news, feel better and live bigger with classical music. This week, classical host Elena See shares music to help give us all some "Breathing Room."

Tracklist

00:00:00
Ralph Vaughan Williams
The Lark Ascending

00:14:17
Eric Whitacre
Sleep

00:19:45
Johannes Brahms
Clarinet Quintet

00:57:30
Enrique Granados
Dance of the Rose

00:59:20
Ludwig van Beethoven
Symphony No. 6

01:40:57
JS Bach
Cello Suite No. 1: I. Prelude

01:43:20
Enrique Granados
Spanish Dances: Suite

01:58:10
Ludovico Einaudi
I giorni

We have curated classical music playlists on YouTube to suit your everyday needs and interests, including music perfect for the beautiful days of summer. Just click the play button, and let your cares melt away.

Want more classical music to match your mood or the season?
Subscribe to our YouTube channel.

Tracklist

00:00
Agathe Backer Grondahl
Fantasy Pieces: Summer Song
Iceland Symphony Orchestra
Bjarne Engeset, conductor

02:17
Edward Elgar
May Song
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
James Judd, conductor

06:17
Enrique Granados
Cuentos de la juventud: Cancion de mayo (May Song)
Douglas Riva, piano

09:12
Wilhelm Peterson-Berger
Frosoblomster: I. Sommersang (Summer Song)
Norrkoping Symphony Orchestra
Michail Jurowski, conductor

11:30
Edward MacDowell
New England Idyls: II. Mid-summer
James Barbagallo, piano

12:43
Paul Gilson
Melodies Ecossaises: Sweet May Morning
Moscow Symphony Orchestra
Frederic Devreese, conductor

15:54
Claude Debussy
Suite Bergamasque: Clair de Lune (Moonlight)
Zsuzsa Kollar, piano

20:48
Frederick Delius
3 Small Tone Poems: No. 1 - Summer Evening
Royal Scottish National Orchestra
David Lloyd-Jones, conductor

26:58
Felix Mendelssohn
Songs Without Words: No. 25 "May Breezes"
Daniela Ruso, piano

30:12
Edward German
The Seasons: Summer
RTE Concert Orchestra
Andrew Penny, conductor

37:04
Peter Tchaikovsky
The Seasons: May Nights
Ilona Prunyi, piano

40:53
Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov
May Night: Overture
Moscow Symphony Orchestra
Igor Golovchin, conductor

51:02
Edvard Grieg
Lyric Pieces, Book 10: II. Sommeraften (Summer's Eve)
Martin Lapsansky, piano

53:23
Edward German
Romeo and Juliet: Nocturne
Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Adrian Leaper, conductor

58:14
Robert Schumann
Kinderszenen (Scenes from Childhood): Träumerei (Dreaming)
Ethella Chuprik, piano

Courtesy of Naxos of America, Inc.

Classical MPR has curated playlists on YouTube to suit your everyday needs, including exercising, putting the kids to bed, or simply relaxing. Just click the play button, and let us provide the soundtrack for your many moods and routines.

You can see what's available below. But be sure to bookmark this page and subscribe to our YouTube channel, because we're adding more playlists every day.

Classical MPR YouTube Playlists

If you have ideas for other classical music playlists, please send them to Randy Salas, senior digital producer for classical music, at rsalas@mpr.org.

Guided progressive muscle relaxation is an exercise that helps improve awareness in your body by consciously tightening and relaxing muscles from head to toe. Using the video below or by listening to the audio player above, you will be guided through the process while working on calm breathing and focusing your thoughts on your muscles and how they feel. We've carefully selected pieces of classical music to accompany this exercise.

Many individuals with chronic back and neck pain experience tight muscles and aren't even aware if a muscle is tight or relaxed. If a muscle is constantly in a state of tightness or contraction, it can be very uncomfortable, can hinder mobility, interfere with sleep, and limit your activity. As you can imagine, over time any one of those can develop into more serious problems if not corrected.

By becoming more aware of your body and being able to realize what a tight muscle feels like, you will be able to self-correct to prevent any of these issues from happening while also relaxing your mind, your body, and reducing stress and anxiety. It might challenging when just starting to be able to isolate the tension in certain muscle groups, but do not be discouraged. With practice, it will become easier, and you will become more in tune with your body and be able to contract and relax certain muscle groups with ease.

This exercise is a co-presentation of Classical Minnesota Public Radio and HealthPartners.

Playlist

Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor" Mvt 2
Composed by Ludwig van Beethoven
Performed by Ethella Chuprik and the CSSR State Philharmonic
Conducted by Reinhard Seifried

Violin Concerto in E minor, II. Andante
Composed by Felix Mendelssohn
Performed by Mariko Honda and the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra
Conducted by Keith Clark

A Midsummer Night's Dream " Notturno"
Composed by Felix Mendelssohn
Performed by Camerata Cassovia
Conducted by Johannes Wildner

Piano Sonata No. 8 "Pathetique", II. Adagio cantabile
Composed by Ludwig van Beethoven
Performed by Silvia Cápová

Dance of the Blessed Spirits from Orfeo ed Euridice
Composed by Christoph Willibad Gluck
Performed by flutist János Bálint and harpist Nóra Mercz

All music provided under license from Naxos Records.

Nate Bahr, M.Ed Applied Kinesiology, works as a coordinator at Physicians Neck and Back Center and CORE Spinal Fitness in Edina, Minn., which is a part of HealthPartners.

How has this not been done before? Even Metallica itself has covered "Enter Sandman" with classroom instruments.

YouTube musician Rob Scallon has made a habit of clever Metallica covers, but now he makes his "fight on the hill" a twee battle. Using singing bowls, toy xylophones and bells both sleigh and bear-shaped, this version of "For Whom The Bell Tolls" sounds like the whimsical and mischievous score to Home Alone. "Time marches on" ... adorably.

Can electric current delivered to the brain by way of a special pod actually help you relax? That's what the makers of a new device promise.

For $149, Thync will sell you a pod that you attach to your head with a "calm strip." It syncs to an app on your phone (that'll be an additional $29 a month for a six-month plan) that you use to dial up your desired mental state: energized or calmed. Specifically, you can set the device for "welcome calm," "zen," "sleep," "good night," or even "bliss" ("relaxation with a dose of intoxication").

"The fundamental mechanism of action centers on modulating cranial and spinal nerve pathways using a combination of targeted electrode placement and proprietary transdermal electrical neuromodulation waveforms," says the company. Okay. "Developing these algorithms involved years of research and testing over 1,000 waveform iterations."

Does it work? Thync says 100% yes. "Relaxation programs result in a 60% reduction in stress and a 30% reduction in anxiety vs. placebo using the clinical Depression Anxiety Stress Scale." Consumer reviews, however, have been mixed. "If you turn it up too high, says vlogger ThioJoe, "it feels like someone is crushing your skull. So, there's that."

Another user tried to test the device by putting it on a couple of friends and asking them to guess whether they were being calmed or stimulated. Two of three guessed incorrectly. "I feel relaxed, almost like I'm getting a head massage," said a woman who was wearing a device set to "energize."

"Our mission at Thync is to 'unlimit' people," says the company's CEO in a press release. "Thync brings together innovations in neuroscience and engineering so you can access your own abilities."

Whether you're wearing an electric pod or chancing it bareheaded, YourClassical's Relax stream is always available with a steady stream of calming classical music.

A hauntingly beautiful choral work by Gordon Hamilton has been transformed into a meditative video, in which we see the composer writing out the score in time with the music.

Who Are We gets its text from Cosmos — the iconic 1980 book by astronomer Carl Sagan:

"We find that we live on an insignificant planet of a hum-drum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people."

This recording is performed by The Australian Voices, which is led by the composer himself. Watch the thoughtful and reflective video below.

When Nathan Bahr was a grad student, he was enrolled in a Psychology of Sports Injury class at the University of Minnesota, studying different techniques a coach or mentor could do to assist an athlete post-injury. That's where he first heard of progressive muscle relaxation (PMR). "It's a technique used to recognize muscle tension and to increase kinesthetic awareness, or self-recognition of body positioning and movement," Bahr explains.

For Bahr, the timing of the PMR lesson was particularly meaningful. "It just so happened at the time that I recently had knee surgery and was working on my own rehabilitation," he recalls. "I was surprised to find out that when the instructor got to the shoulders and said to tighten them, they were already tense and tight. I could have been walking around all day with tense shoulders without realizing it. It just felt so great to feel my shoulders drop. Turns out a rehab from an injury plus grad school adds up the stress and anxiety levels a little bit."

Bahr now has a M.Ed in Applied Kinesiology, and he works as a coordinator at Physicians Neck and Back Center and CORE Spinal Fitness in Edina, Minn., which is a part of HealthPartners. In his work, Bahr helps patients to recover from injury and — importantly — to pursue a fitness plan that can help them avoid re-injury. "Muscular tension can be caused by many factors such as stress, fatigue, anxiety, irregular sleep schedule, or even an injury," he says. "Knowing when and where you have muscle tension can be a step towards relief."

Because progressive muscle relaxation can assist with that relief, Bahr took time to answer questions about PMR and about how it can be part of one's overall fitness regimen.

How does progressive muscle relaxation work?

Progressive muscle relaxation is normally led by an instructor, and you follow their directions during the exercise. You can start by laying on the floor or sitting in your chair, preferably in a quiet space. You focus on your breathing. Not trying to control the pace of your breathing, but just to be aware that it is there, taking deep breaths and exhaling them. Once you are aware of your breathing and you are calm, the progression can begin.

The instructor will focus on as many or as few muscle groups as needed, depending on the time constraints. What you do is squeeze and tense the muscles the instructor tells you to, and then you will relax them as much as you can. The instructor will slowly move their way up the body, directing you to tense the muscles and relax them.

It sounds like a simple exercise just squeezing and relaxing muscles, but you might come to find you have muscles that are tense when you don't even realize it.

How can progressive muscle relaxation fit into an overall fitness plan or approach to personal wellness?

A progressive muscle relaxation session can be done really any time. There are many different versions on YouTube that vary in duration, so if you just need to check out for a few minutes during a stressful day, you can do so as long as you can find a quiet place.

As far as fitting it into a fitness plan, your muscles need recovery time after a workout. If stress and anxiety aren't allowing these muscles to relax and they are constantly firing at all hours, you aren't giving them the proper time to recover and heal in time for the next workout.

How does progressive muscle relaxation help with body awareness?

You are experiencing exactly how it feels when a muscle is tense and when a muscle is relaxed because you are physically doing it while the instructor is explaining the sensation.

After being able to recognize the feeling of a tense muscle, you might have the awareness to catch your tension building at any given time and have the self-awareness to relax the muscle on your own. It might take some practice, but I do believe that practicing these motions consistently could possibly help the muscles react properly and more efficiently.

As Bahr explains, progressive muscle relaxation can help relieve tension and lead to improved body awareness. When it's time to let your muscles relax, YourClassical's Relax Stream is always ready to provide the soundtrack.

Resources

Physicians Neck & Back Center website

When Joanne D'Amico is hard at work, she's making sure you're not. "Stress can really take a toll on our health and well-being, especially when experienced for long periods of time," she says. "It is extremely important to interrupt those long periods of stress with some deep relaxation."

For 13 years, D'Amico worked as a registered nurse, primarily as a general surgical nurse. "Having a medical background has helped me understand the impact that long-term stress can have on our health and well-being, especially in terms of the physiological reactions that occur with both stress and relaxation," D'Amico explains. "Not only have I personally experienced the negative effects of stress, but I have also seen the damaging effects that stress has had with many of my own patients and clients."

Helping people to relax became so important to D'Amico that she's made it her career. She sought further education to become a licensed, registered massage therapist, and later, she began teaching weekly guided-relaxation classes in her community in the Niagara region of southern Ontario, Canada. Some of the people in the class began to request D'Amico record sessions that could be listened to at home. That eventually led to D'Amico publishing her recordings to the web and to YouTube, where she now has nearly 20,000 subscribers.

D'Amico says there are many health benefits to guided relaxation, such as slowing down the heart rate, lowering blood pressure, reducing muscle tension and headaches, improving sleep, and improved mood and temperament. "Because of this, I really believe that guided relaxation is the true antidote to stress," D'Amico says, noting that guided relaxation should not be a substitute for standard medical care. "This awareness not only encourages me to teach and share guided relaxation with others, but it inspires me to continue to practice for my own health and well-being."

To provide a sample of a guided relaxation, D'Amico recorded a three-minute guided relaxation session, which you can listen to using the audio player above. Shedding further light on what guided relaxation is and how it can be a helpful part of one's lifestyle, D'Amico answers these questions on the topic:

It seems guided relaxation comprises several forms. What types of guided relaxation are there?

Yes, there are several different types of guided relaxation. For instance, one type of guided relaxation involves "deep breathing." Deep breathing, as many of us already know, is one of the most effective ways to elicit relaxation, and this is because when we stop what we're doing and we take some slow deep breaths, this sends a signal to the part of our brain called the hypothalamus. When the stress response is triggered, our breathing automatically gets rapid and shallow. So, when the hypothalamus notices that the breath is slow and deep, it must mean that there are no threats, that everything is OK, and that it's safe to calm down and relax. And as a result, the release of stress hormones stops and the relaxation response is activated within the body. Deep breathing techniques can be used to elicit relaxation quickly and effectively.

Another type of guided relaxation is a technique known as "progressive muscle relaxation" or PMR. This type of guided exercise helps induce a profound state of physical relaxation. This is done by systematically tensing and then relaxing all the major muscle groups of the body from head to toe. When our muscles feel deeply relaxed, this relaxation leads to mental calmness and our relaxation further deepens. PMR has been well researched and is widely accepted by the medical profession for its effectiveness in relieving the symptoms of muscle tension, headaches, insomnia and anxiety.

Another guided relaxation technique is "guided imagery" and "visualization." In very simple terms, this technique uses the power of imagination to help you relax. The listener is guided to imagine peaceful images that help elicit feelings of relaxation. Because the body and mind are strongly connected, when you visualize a certain imagery in your mind's eye, the body will react as though what you're imagining is really happening. For instance, when you close your eyes and are guided to imagine in your mind's eye, say, a quiet peaceful beach — and by engaging all of your senses — you can imagine the feeling of the soft white sand between your toes, hear the rhythmic sound of the rolling waves, see the clear blue sky up above, feel the soothing warmth of the sun against your skin. Provided the beach is a place that represents relaxation for you, all this guided imagery can help elicit peaceful feelings.

Guided imagery can be used to help ease chronic pain and promote relaxation. It can also be used to help improve self-esteem and self-confidence. Many have used guided imagery to help reach goals such as losing weight or to help prepare for an athletic event or public speaking.

For better results, how frequently is a guided relaxation recommended? How do you respond to those who say, "I don't have time for relaxation"?

For many of us, relaxation means zoning out in front of the TV at the end the day. But unfortunately, this activity doesn't counteract the damaging effects of stress. To effectively counteract the negative effects of stress, we need to activate the body's natural relaxation response. That can only be done with relaxation techniques like deep breathing, muscle relaxation, guided imagery and so forth. Guided relaxation is a skill — and like any other skill, the more we practice, the easier it becomes. A daily dose of practicing some sort of relaxation technique would be ideal. And if some one says to me, "I don't have time for relaxation," my response to that is, "The time to relax is when you think don't have time."

I always loved that quote because I think it's true!

How is guided relaxation better than self-directed relaxation techniques?

I feel that for most people, self-guided relaxation can be difficult at times because our mind is often busy and we can become easily distracted and sidetracked. Whereas with guided relaxation, the relaxation experience is led by a guide. If the person practicing the relaxation becomes distracted, or if their mind wanders, they can be gently redirected back to the technique by the teacher who is guiding the technique. This type of guidance can take place in a class setting with a teacher present or in the form of a CD or digital product such as an audio or video recording, or even YouTube.

For your guided relaxation with music, how do you select the music that accompanies the voiceover? Do you compose and create the music yourself? Do you have someone create it for you?

Unfortunately, I do not compose my own music — I wish! To have someone specifically create the music for me would be very expensive. So, I have had to resort to searching online for royalty free music.

Fortunately, some of the royalty- free music I have found is free of charge and is licensed under the Creative Commons License. For example, I often used royalty-free music by composer Kevin Macleod. His music is free, but he humbly accepts donations via PayPal to help him continue to create free music.

I have also purchased royalty-free music by composer Christopher Lloyd Clarke. I really love his music! It has a dreamy quality to it and it provides the perfect background music for some of my guided relaxations.

Beyond guided relaxation sessions, what music do you find relaxing?

I really enjoy world music, and a few of my most favorite music artists include Enya, Loreena McKennitt, Ima Galguén, as well as meditative spiritual new age singer Diva Premal. Their music and singing have a dreamy spiritual feel that I absolutely love! When I listen to any of these beautiful ladies sing, I seem to get transported far, far away.

As D'Amico makes clear, relaxation is important. When you don't have time for a fully immersive guided relaxation, YourClassical's Relax stream is always ready to provide the soundtrack.

Resources

Relax for a While - Joanne D'Amico's official site

Count on Japan to be on the cutting edge of relaxation trends. What's hot right now for Japanese who want to de-stress? Adult wrapping.

Yes, that's exactly what it sounds like. Nobuko Wantanabe, creator of the Toko-chan belt (a.k.a. the baby bump bra), has devised a method of wrapping adults in stretchable sheets. The practice was inspired by the swaddling of babies, who even the Virgin Mary knew often calm down when they're wrapped tightly in fabric.

For about 20 minutes, you're curled up in the fetal position — alone or in a group (everyone in their own sheet, of course). Once you're wrapped, you gently sway from side to side.

When you emerge, you're "relaxed and rejuvenated," according to one Japanese blogger. You may also find that your posture and flexibility are improved, and that you're prepared to (TMI alert) vacate your bowels in a healthy manner.

The practice was first prescribed for expectant mothers, but now it's becoming popular among people who feel cramped, stiff, or just a little stressed out.

Whether or not you have someone ready to wrap you up beforehand (and, hopefully, untie you afterwards), YourClassical's Relax stream is ready to provide the soundtrack.

Throughout the history of art, rural life and rural scenes have played a significant role in inspiring artists of all kinds. Consider rural subjects in paintings (many impressionist works spring to mind), photography (Ansel Adams, for one), theater (Our Town, Oklahoma!), and others — not to mention the impact of the rural landscape on music.

When you first consider music about the countryside, you might naturally think of various types of folk music and region-specific styles like bluegrass — but don't overlook the impact that country life and environments have had on classical music as well. Indeed, some classical compositions really seem to speak of the beauty of farms, fields, nature, and animals. In some of these cases, the composer was specifically attempting to draw the listener's attention to these details, and in others the pastoral theme is more subtle.

If you're interested in exploring classical "country music," here are a few selections to get you started.

Beethoven's Symphony No. 6

Commonly known as the "Pastoral" symphony, or "Recollections on Country Life," Beethoven's 6th is a joyful and peaceful take on the countryside experience, with the intended themes and imagery made additionally clear to the listener thanks to Beethoven's helpful titles and score notes (one of the few Beethoven works to feature such programmatic information). Beethoven himself called the 6th symphony "more an expression of feeling than painting," but the country imagery is definitely here.

The first movement ("Awakening of happy feelings on arrival in the country") is a peaceful, sometimes almost lazy, sometimes more inspiring "walk" segment, ending with a charming sequence of the woodwinds simulating bird calls. This is followed by a soft brook sequence ("Scene by the brook"), and a more upbeat and energetic movement ("Joyous gathering of country folk"). The fourth movement ("Thunderstorm") is truly brilliant, featuring a clear and detailed musical approximation of weather, beginning with light "raindrops," followed by intense "thunder." Like many thunderstorms, the movement is brief, lasting only a few minutes. It then transitions into the fifth and final segment ("Shepherd's song; happy and thankful feelings after the storm") which is calmer and more uplifting, and features a few moments of the shepherd's peaceful "yodeling."

It's a great symphony, and a wonderful ride.

Saint-Saëns's Carnival of the Animals

No matter how you slice it, Camille Saint-Saëns's Carnival of the Animals is a delightfully imaginative and unique piece. Clocking in at less than half an hour total, the Carnival features 14 segments, most of which are dedicated to musically portraying a single animal or type of animal.

Some of the animals in the "carnival" are more exotic (like kangaroos and the elephant), but Saint-Saëns also pays a loving homage to some common rural creatures. One delightful — if very brief — piece is "Hens and Roosters," which features the piano and strings imitating the hens "pecking," and the piano also playing the part of the crowing roosters.

Remember that this music was written in the 1880s — a time when the average person experienced a more closer daily interaction with common farm animals — and you can start to see that Saint-Saëns's musical stylings would resound even more strongly with listeners at that time than they do today. All of the pieces in the Carnival are three minutes or less, so the entire suite is an excellent choice for introducing children to classical music.

Read more about Saint-Saëns's children's classic.

Vivaldi's The Four Seasons

The well-known (and often recorded) Four Seasons has a very country feel, and these themes are even easy to recognize, thanks to a series of accompanying sonnets (which may have been written by Vivaldi). In addition to the generally pleasant and peaceful qualities of the seasons themselves, be on the listen for such "country" details as a "barking" dog, wind and storms, insects, hail, farmers harvesting grain...and the chilly "stamping" of feet to keep warm in the winter!

Daniel Johnson is a Wisconsin-based photographer and writer, and the author of several nonfiction titles. You can see his photography work (he does a lot of rural life!) at foxhillphoto.com. He's a long-time piano and guitar player, and Nocturne in E-flat Major Op. 9, No. 2 is his all-time favorite piece of classical music.

"Among the various art forms, music is the best studied and the most convincingly demonstrated to provide health benefits to patients," says Paul D. Scanlon, M.D., a pulmonologist and the medical director of the Mayo Clinic Dolores Jean Lavins Center for Humanities in Medicine.

That's part of why, beginning Thursday, Sept. 1, patients at Mayo Clinic hospitals in Rochester, Minn.; Jacksonville, Fla.; and Phoenix, Ariz., will be able to relax to a custom blend of classical music provided by YourClassical from American Public Media.

APM is the largest provider of classical-music programming in North America, and a new agreement with Mayo Clinic calls for YourClassical to supply up to 17 hours of streaming classical at no charge to patients and visitors in patient rooms. The music will feature selections from the Relax Stream found at YourClassical.org. "We are delighted to join with APM to bring high-quality classical music programming to our patients and visitors," Dr. Scanlon says.

Compositions by Bach, Beethoven, Mozart and others will be the focus of the soundtrack. When patients listen, the title of each piece, along with the name of the composer and an identifier, "This is the Relax Stream, from YourClassical.org," will appear on their TV screens.

Research indicates that music can aid healing in many ways, such as improving pain control, reducing need for pain medication, improving quality of life, reducing anxiety and lowering blood pressure. APM initiated discussions with Mayo Clinic as part of an outreach program, and the resulting collaboration will promote healing and comfort for patients. "Our mission at APM is to enrich the mind and nourish the spirit, enhancing the lives of our audiences," says Brian Newhouse, managing director of classical programming at APM. "Curating gorgeous music for the benefit of medical patients, in collaboration with such an esteemed institution like Mayo Clinic, delivers on that mission in a whole new way and is a joy to do."

We've long known that classical music can help humans to relax — and it turns out that it has a similar effect on some members of the animal kingdom, too.

A study out of France shows that while horses being driven around in trailers, and being re-shod (activities that tend to stress horses out), evidence lower anxiety and recover more quickly if orchestral music is played for them.

"The findings are likely to be of interest to racehorse trainers, one of whose biggest challenges is getting their highly-strung thoroughbreds to the start line in a calm frame of mind," reports the Telegraph — which also notes that, nonetheless, horses are not currently permitted to wear headphones on racecourses.

That could change, though: a spokesperson for the British Horseracing Authority says that "we are always open to new innovations which may benefit equine welfare and would be interested in monitoring the results of further studies into this concept."

A bit of fine print: though the study's authors bill their finding as regarding "classical music," the actual tune used in the experiment was not exactly classical music. It was Alan Silvestri's theme to Forrest Gump.

Film scores are great — but if you want to try some actual classical music on your horse, or yourself, cue up YourClassical's Relax stream.

I'm at a lake today — the big one, Lake Superior. It's an inspiring setting, and many composers have been inspired by lakes as well. Here's some classical music to set the mood for your summer retreat. (Thanks to Jennifer Allen for compiling this previous list, from which I've drawn four of these selections.)

Alan Hovhaness: Symphony No. 63 "Loon Lake"

The loons! The loons! No, not in Minnesota — in New Hampshire, home of the music festival where this piece premiered in 1988. Co-commissioned by the Loon Preservation Society, the symphony celebrates the fowl perhaps most famously associated with American lakes.

Leo Sowerby: From the Northland

Leo Sowerby's 1922 tone poem is subtitled "Impressions of Lake Superior Country," and it does for the Great Lakes what Richard Strauss's Alpine Symphony did for European mountains. The programmatic piece begins in the forest, then makes its way along a burbling river to "the shining big-sea water" — seen, in Sowerby's case, on a car trip through Canada.

Robert Farnon: Lake of the Woods

Canadian composer Robert Farnon took his inspiration for this meditative piece from childhood visits to the Lake of the Woods: the giant body of water crossing the borders of Minnesota, Ontario, and Manitoba.

Arthur Somervell: The Shropshire Lad

A.E. Housman's nostalgic poem cycle was set by composers including Somervell — the composer most closely associated with England's Lake District.

Ola Gjeilo: The Lake Isle and Lake Isle II

The newest pieces on this list, Lake Isle and its sequel were written just recently by Norwegian composer Ola Gjeilo. With unusual instrumentation combining piano, string quartet, guitar, and choir, the first piece sets a poem by Yeats — who was writing about Ireland's Lough Gill. The sequel (not yet recorded) has lyrics written specially for the piece by Charles Anthony Silvestri. Like Somervell, Gjeilo was moved by England's Lake District, which he calls "the most inspiring place."

Peter Tchaikovsky: Swan Lake

Certainly the most famous piece of classical music ever written specifically about a lake, Tchaikovsky's ballet inspired by Russian folk tales is one of his most beloved masterpieces. The music has beautiful tranquil passages, but also moments of high drama as an evil sorcerer and the infamous Black Swan do their dirty deeds.

Gioachino Rossini: La Donna del Lago

This 1819 opera tells the story of a Scottish beauty (the "Lady of the Lake") who's caught between dueling Highland factions. Again, not the most peaceful music, but who ever said lakeside living was always easy?

Is it possible to help people feel relaxed and at home in places such as cinemas and airport lounges? In a video entitled "Hospitality Lessons" from Monocle Magazine, two interior designers describe how elements like lighting, patterns, furniture and textiles can help people feel at ease and welcome in public spaces. "Design is a critical ingredient for a warm welcome," says the film narrator.

For the U.K.'s Curzon Cinemas, designer Afroditi Krassa describes how she removed the box office from Curzon's London Victoria location to create an open, democratic and multi-use space. And for Curzon's Cantebury cinema, Krassa embraced the unique space offered by an 1890s warehouse conversion. "We've tried to replicate a home cinema idea, so the place feels very homelike," Krassa says. "We've got little different pockets of areas where people can congregate that feel almost like your lounge or your kitchen table, really celebrating the communal part of the cinema."

A new German study has found that classical music calms the body even more than simple silence does — and significantly more than pop music, in particular ABBA.

Researchers at Ruhr University Bochum measured the blood pressure and heart rate of 60 subjects who listened to a randomized mix of music by ABBA, Mozart, and Johann Strauss II.

Blood pressure decreased markedly when subjects were listening to classical music; control subjects who sat in silence also saw a blood pressure drop, while those listening to ABBA had their blood pressure stay about the same.

All three types of music had a calming effect on heart rate, but classical music much more so — in particular the Mozart, due perhaps (researchers speculate) to the dancelike nature of Strauss's waltzes.

Interestingly, the researchers asked subjects whether they normally listened to the type of music they were hearing, to see whether familiarity would alter the effects; it did not.

Mozart's "Symphony in G Minor is particularly beneficial for the cardiocirculatory system," write the researchers, "because of the special arrangement of its compositional elements."

When you're ready to take the pressure down a notch, tune in to YourClassical's Relax stream.

Cellist Maya Beiser finds no boundaries in music. In her TED talk, she recalls the intermingling of J.S. Bach's cello suites and the chanting of Muslim prayers from an Arab village near the Kibbutz in Israel where she grew up. She's equally comfortable navigating brand-new commissions from today's top composers or looping her cello into a wall of sound in rock standards by Jimi Hendrix and Led Zeppelin.

In this video, associated with the upcoming album TranceClassical (due out July 29), Beiser plays with time and memory. She turns the clock back to her childhood — to the days of snuggling with a blanket on the sofa, hearing Bach's music for the first time off a scratchy old LP.

As the needle hits the vinyl, two dancers, like the hands of a clock, move across a rotating turntable to the strains of Beiser's cello. She's looped her instrument into a chamber ensemble for Bach's "Air," the sublime second movement from his Orchestral Suite No. 3. The pulsating bass line ticks away, reminding us of the timelessness of the music — already 285 years old.

In the midst of all the new music that Beiser commissions and performs, Bach, she says, is her "artistic mooring."

Copyright 2016 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Stephen Malinowski is a musician, inventor, and software engineer. He is responsible for an animated graphic score project known as The Music Animation Machine.

He's created animations for a number of works and prominent composers, including Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinsky, and Debussy. For his latest project, he is working through the entirety of Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, Book One.

At this point, Malinowski has completed 17 videos, which can be viewed in this YouTube playlist. Below is the artist's animation of the Prelude in C major, BWV 846.

In the United States, April 18 is the day tax returns are due. Stressed out? Here are some tips for decompressing.

Get help

You don't need a seven-figure income (or even a six-figure income) to make it worthwhile to enlist an accountant for tax help. Whatever your line of work, there's a specialist who can help you — and it might be that the specialist will be able to save you more than you expect.

The internet is your friend

My tax preparations are 95% less stressful since I started using an online tax service. It's just like taking a survey — and I love surveys! Click, click, click, you're done. Plus, if you find a service you like, it will save your tax information so that you don't need to start future years' tax preparations by digging for old returns.

Get a drink and settle in

I don't recommend imbibing alcohol while you're doing your taxes, but try an herbal tea — or a cup of coffee, if you're not burning the midnight oil already. Plan to take some time — if you focus on getting it over with as quickly as possible, you'll inevitably be frustrated and make mistakes.

Stay organized

Okay, okay, it might be too late for this already — but you can make your life easier come tax time by sticking to a consistent system for organizing your receipts and other relevant paperwork.

Misery loves company

Make plans to get together with friends and have a tax party. Order some take-out and attack those taxes en masse like you're studying together for a big exam. Did your parents ever pay you for getting good grades? This is kind of like that.

Fill your ears with calm

YourClassical's Relax stream is standing by 24/7 to keep you calm with soothing music from the world's greatest composers. Remember: no matter how crazy your taxes get, Mozart's were even worse.

Gallery

Fullscreen SlideshowPrevious Slide

1 of 1

Next Slide

With spring breaks wrapping up, college students across the country are taking a deep breath and starting to think about ramping up for final papers, exams, and theses. It's a stressful time...how can students stay calm, collected, and healthy?

Gretchen Kernbach at Uloop offers a list of six amenities property managers should offer students: fitness centers, lounges, volleyball courts, laundry services, movie theaters (!), and hammocks. That all sounds great to me — my own college dorm had only one of those, and that's if you define "lounge" generously — but here are a few more substantive suggestions for colleges looking to help their students make it through finals season with their mental and physical health intact.

Counseling services

It's not just about having a counseling office, it's about making help available to students. RAs, especially if they're only a year or two older, aren't always the most reliable sources of mental and emotional support. Nor are faculty advisors always ready to provide anything beyond strict academic guidance (and sometimes not even that). Counseling should be ready on hand, and not just for students in crisis.

Game nights

I still don't quite believe how much cribbage my friends and I played in college, nor am I prepared to say that it stayed entirely within the bounds of what was advisable given our course loads...but having a few basic board games on hand can give students an easy way to take mental-health breaks when needed. You can even coordinate game nights, with people bringing their own games to share.

Tea

In grad school I was fortunate to live in a dorm that had hot and cold drinks available 24/7 — but as an undergrad, no such luck. Even if facilities (and budgets) can't accommodate constant tea service, the occasional tea night can become a social opportunity and an encouragement to lay off the energy drinks. Not that I'm judging coffee fiends — being one myself. When I was an RA, I invited a local roaster to come in and offer a sampling of his wares.

Field trips

Especially if transit access is limited, campuses can turn into isolated islands. Outings to local parks or museums can help students stop to smell the daisies — or see the Water Lilies.

Relaxing music

Why not bring live music out of the concert hall and into the dorms — or onto the quads? Of course, when live music isn't available, YourClassical is always ready with a continuous stream of relaxing music. It's just what the doctor (as in the Ph.D.) ordered.

Gallery

Fullscreen SlideshowPrevious Slide

1 of 1

Next Slide