“Madamina, il catalogo è questo” (The Catalogue Aria), from Don Giovanni, W. A. Mozart (1787)

Leporello, the Don’s servant, has a thankless job. His master has just abandoned Donna Elvira, and Leporello consoles her by reading from his ledger of conquests: 640 women in Italy, 231 in Germany, 100 in France, 91 in Turkey, and in Spain already 1,003. Mozart and Da Ponte turn the list into comic theatre, with a brisk patter opening and a courtly minuet when the Don’s tastes for women of every age and type are described. Beneath the humour is a portrait of a man whose appetite is a kind of accounting.

“Giovinette, che fate all’amore”, from Don Giovanni, W. A. Mozart

In Act I, the peasant bride Zerlina and her fiancé Masetto celebrate their wedding with their village friends. Zerlina is playful and persuasive here as she tells the girls to enjoy love while they are young. The music is light and folk-like, which makes the Don’s arrival, and his designs on the bride, all the more menacing.

“Romance”, Claude Debussy

Debussy was a young man when he began setting French poetry, and this early song shows the delicate, floating style that he later made famous. The vocal line is gently inflected and the piano supplies atmosphere rather than simple accompaniment. The mood is wistful and intimate, a world apart from the Mozart that precedes it.

“Youth and Love”, Ralph Vaughan Williams (from Songs of Travel)

The song comes from Vaughan Williams’s cycle on poems by Robert Louis Stevenson, which follows a wanderer along the open road. In “Youth and Love” the traveller looks back on the pull of young love and the longing to move on. Vaughan Williams writes with warmth and directness, and the folk-inflected melody sounds natural and unforced.

“Caro! Bella!”, from Giulio Cesare in Egitto, G. F. Handel (1724)

Handel’s heroic opera about Julius Caesar and Cleopatra includes this duet, in which two powerful figures drop their public roles and speak as lovers. The two voices answer and intertwine over a graceful accompaniment, and the Baroque style lets the emotion come through ornament and line.

“Dunque io son”, from Il barbiere di Siviglia, Gioachino Rossini (1816)

Rosina, a spirited young woman under the thumb of her guardian, has written a note to the handsome “Lindoro” (really the disguised Count Almaviva). She asks the barber Figaro to deliver it, and acts surprised when he suggests it, though the letter is already in her pocket. Rossini’s quick exchanges and sparkling runs capture her cleverness and Figaro’s delight in scheming.

“Ständchen”, Richard Strauss (1887)

Strauss was in his early twenties when he set Adolf Friedrich von Schack’s poem about a lover’s night-time serenade. The piano’s rippling, shimmering figures suggest a moonlit garden, and the voice rises ecstatically above them. Brief and radiant, it is one of his best-loved songs.

Act III, Marcello and Mimì scene, from La bohème, Giacomo Puccini (1896)

At a snowy Paris tollgate at dawn, Mimì comes looking for Marcello, who is living nearby with Musetta. She tells him of her turbulent relationship with Rodolfo and of his jealousy. Puccini’s writing is conversational, with the voices moving close together, and the cold, grey atmosphere deepens the sense that something precious is ending.

“Donde lieta uscì”, from La bohème, Giacomo Puccini

Mimì decides to leave Rodolfo and bids him a dignified farewell, asking only that he keep what is his and send back what is hers. The aria is sung with great restraint, and the quiet resignation of the melody makes it among the most affecting moments in Puccini.

“Quanto amore… Bella Adina”, from L’elisir d’amore, Gaetano Donizetti (1832)

In this comedy, the shy villager Nemorino believes that a quack’s “love potion” will win him the independent Adina. In this scene, Adina is moved by how far Nemorino has gone for her sake, while the charlatan Dr. Dulcamara takes credit for the elixir’s supposed effects. Donizetti blends comedy and genuine tenderness, and the music leaves no doubt that Adina’s heart has been won.