For Ruth Bader Ginsburg

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, one of the greatest, greatest-hearted public figures of our time, died today at the age of eighty-seven. Like many people, I am more or less speechless with despair at the news, but I wanted to offer up some music in her memory. In 2012, she wrote up a list of her favorite recordings, which I published on the New Yorker website. On it was Matthias Goerne's Schubert album An mein Herz, which she said she listened to at home while working. The recording of "Du bist die Ruh" embedded above appears on that disc. Ginsburg had a deep, lifelong love of opera, and I got to witness her enthusiasm first hand at the Santa Fe Opera in 2013, while I was working on a profile of Joyce DiDonato. I know without having to ask that Joyce is one of dozens of opera singers whom Justice Ginsburg befriended and who are now devastated by her death — as is everyone who still believes in an American ideal.  זיכרונה לברכה: may her memory be a blessing.