Aino Venna, from Marlene (2012). The lyric jumps from a bench to a lap, then suddenly it’s the color red, then we’re in France or standing in front of a Rembrandt. It’s like desire needs an official stamp before it can say anything out loud. Definitely not selling Paris as a squeaky-clean romance. #Paris

Everyone knows the piece, but streaming still sticks it under Jazz Suite No. 2. It's actually from the Suite for Variety Orchestra, pulled together in the 1950s from stage and film music—think saxophones, accordion, guitar. Kubrick picked a waltz from it for Eyes Wide Shut. It was the first Shostakovich piece that made me dig into his diaries, because that disciplined smile felt off somehow. #Shostakovich

Clara Wieck wrote the Op. 11 romances in 1839, right before marrying Robert Schumann. Out in print by 1840, dedicated to him, it’s basically a lifeline from someone fighting to hold onto herself while others argued about her legal status. Isata Kanneh-Mason plays it now. I want to take it apart and learn it, slowly, someday—and probably dedicate it to N.

I reach for Adam György’s 2007 version. Paganini wrote the tune for his Violin Concerto No. 2 in 1826; Liszt spun it into his third Grande étude de Paganini in 1851. Not the most difficult thing Liszt wrote, but if I could play any, this would be my pick.

Tchaikovsky wrote Swan Lake in 1875–76; the Bolshoi premiere in 1877 flopped. This is the Act II lakeside scene—Siegfried hunting, Odette under a spell. #Tchaikovsky

Mozart finished this G-minor symphony in Salzburg on October 5, 1773—seventeen years old, just one of his two symphonies in that key, written for four horns. The first movement opens with syncopated notes that just won’t settle down. Marriner and the Academy take it fast. There’s panic, but it’s all structure.

Beethoven wrote the A-minor bagatelle in 1810. Ludwig Nohl published it in 1867. It’s still sitting on an old list on this site as /Fur Elise Bagatelle No.25.mp3/—honestly, that’s probably how I first heard it. Igor Levit plays my favorite version.

Corelli’s Op. 6 No. 8 says it was “Made for Christmas Night.” It showed up in print after 1714, along with his twelve concerti grossi, but it really hails from Rome around 1690. This Allegro, the second movement, comes right before that famous Pastorale. I stick with the Parry/LPO version. #Rome

From Chants soufis arabo-andalous (2003), track seven. The French title echoes the Arabic “Leila has taken my reason,” and in the shadows wait Qays and Majnun—the beloved’s absence turning sanity into something you almost want to lose. The song just keeps repeating the claim until you start to buy it.

This song aches for two cities; two loves, two of everything. #Michelle Gurevich

Cohen was thirty-three when his first album landed, 27 December 1967, with two novels and four poetry books already behind him. “Stories of the Street,” late on side two, was born out of New York in the sixties—one hand on a hexagram, one on a girl. There's one line that just hangs: “we are so small between the stars, so large against the sky.” #Leonard Cohen

Liszt built his Second Rhapsody out of verbunkos and csárdás—Romani café. It’s two breaths; a slow lassan, then the friska that keeps speeding up. For Cziffra’s take, Roma born in 1921 Budapest, playing circuses at five, wrists wrecked by a labor camp. He plays it faster than the page asks, the way Liszt must have wished.

The title track of Fairouz’s 2010 album—her first in nearly ten years. The words: “yes, there is hope.” What really matters is who sings it: Nouhad Haddad, born in Beirut in the ’30s, a voice that never took sides during fifteen years of civil war. The music is by her son Ziad—more jazz now, less of the Rahbani Brothers’ countryside sound. #Lebanon

The image of “caravan”—well, it’s not exactly simple.

The title is from Umm Salama’s vial, the one that turned to blood the moment Husayn was killed at Karbala, according to the story at least. I hold onto it for Basim’s voice, he stretches a syllable until it slips from music into something closer to grief.