Most achingly-beautiful music

J.S. Bach, Goldberg Variations (Glen Gould, first issue); Super Session, Al Kooper and Mike Bloomfield with Steven Stills; Helter Skelter, The Beatles (not achingly-beautiful, but if you are not moving, you must be dead).

Rachmaninoff: Sonata in G-minor, Op. 19, for cello and piano, performed by Stephen Kates and Carolyn Pope Kobler, on the Bainbridge label, BCD6272, 1981, utilizing the patented "Colossus" recording system -- one of the very best early digital recordings, and heart-breakingly beautiful, especially the third movement Andante. One of the small handful of CDs I take with me to audition speakers and components. Breathtaking recording of a 1739 Montagnana cello and a magnificent Bosendorfer Konzertfluegel grand. Don't know if it's still in print.

The Adagio from Mahler's uncompleted 10th Symphony, fabulously performed by the RSO Berlin under the baton on Riccardo Chailly, London 421-182-2, 1987 (two discs; with Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht). Transcendent Mahler.

Miles Davis, Sketches of Spain.
Joni Mitchell, Blue.
Jefferson Airplane, "Comin' Back to Me" from Surrealistic Pillow.
Charlie Haden, Magico.
Nanci Griffith, "From a Distance," on One Fair Summer Evening.
Joan Baez, Diamonds & Rust.

Dave Van Ronk died of colon cancer on February 10, 2002, at the age of 65. He released more than 40 albums during his long career. I don't know if it ever came out on CD, but I'd love to get a CD or Minidisc copy of the early 1968 LP "Dave Van Ronk and the Hudson Dusters," in which he did the most achingly beautiful cover of "Clouds" (Both Sides Now), the Joni Mitchell classic. His recording finally gave a good song the piercing intensity it needed in that year we lost Robert F. Kennedy and what little was left of our national innocence.

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