Music

It's the old story: boy gets shot by Cupid's bow and arrow, boy falls in love with girl. So old, in fact, that it forms the story of the very first opera. History has not been gentle with Jacopo Peri's Daphne – most of the music is lost, and the date of the first performance is unclear. But the tradition which it began has been resilient, and of the thousands of operas written since then, most have had some version of boy-meets-girl at their center. Here we take a quick look at some of opera's most famous love duets – and wish you a Happy Valentine's Day.

On October 31, 1998, Hugh Wolff and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra performed Three Places in New England by Charles Ives. These musical postcards evoke American places and experiences, including the memorial to Colonel Shaw and the 54th Regiment that fought in the Civil War. Here is the statue and it's inscription that inspired Ives.

It is one of the great received images of the twentieth century: As the stricken Titanic slips into the ocean, Wallace Hartley and his musicians remain steadfast at their posts, playing "Nearer, My God, to Thee." Music has become an indispensable part of the Titanic myth. With the big exhibit in St. Paul, thousands of Minnesotans are going to become Titanic buffs, if only temporarily, and we submit five very diverse examples of how musicians have responded to the story of the disaster.