Pope Francis, the music nerd: a playlist

We tend to think of popes as people who are somehow elevated from the rest of us — a few steps up the ladder leading to God, perhaps. But Pope Francis, whose birth name was Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was often thinking of the common citizen, as heard in his comments about migrants, refugees and people on the margins of society. Even for his own funeral proceedings, he elected for a simple wooden coffin and stipulated that his body be buried not in the Vatican’s glorious St. Peter’s Basilica, but across town in a smaller, more humble space.

Since the Pope’s death on Monday, I’ve been learning more about his life, and found that he indeed was more of a common man than one might expect. In 2013, he confirmed rumors that, in his student days in his hometown of Buenos Aires, he once held a gig as a nightclub bouncer. It came as no surprise, then, to find that Pope Francis also had a record collection, and spoke eloquently about his faves.

“Among musicians, I love Mozart, of course,” the pontiff told Father Antonio Spadaro, editor of the Jesuit paper La Civiltá Cattolica, in 2013. “The ‘Et incarnatus est’ from his Mass in C minor is matchless; it lifts you to God!” Other choices were a bit more eclectic. Wagner was a favorite, but not just any Wagner recording — the pope specifically pointed to a performance of the composer’s massive Ring cycle, conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler, captured live in 1950 at La Scala in Milan.

Like most music buffs, the pope had his favorite record stores. Before rising to the papacy, he frequented Stereosound, a family-owned shop near the Pantheon in Rome. (He paid a visit in 2022 to bless the store after a recent renovation.) His personal collection included tangos by Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, Elvis Presley gospel recordings and albums by the French chanson singer Edith Piaf.

Knowing that Pope Francis was a music nerd puts a smile on my face. That’s the inspiration for the playlist below, which begins with the pope’s personal favorites and then branches out to other music that might have matched his taste. Some picks are deeply spiritual; there’s work here by Henryk Górecki, Arvo Pärt and John Tavener, the trio of composers sometimes referred to as the “God Squad.” Others are more earthbound, furthering the idea that Jorge Mario Bergoglio was one of us.