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German here. This is a recording of "Willkommen und Abschied" by Goethe. It's a beautiful poem and I find that this recording does it justice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mgd0JYKu14Q

Ave Maria by Schubert (Barbara Bonney) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM0W98t9KSU

Sorry, but any normal speaking? Opera like this sounds exactly the same to me regardless of language so it is harder to compare.

I'm an American that has lived in Berlin for over 3 years now, so I'm very used to the language (if not exactly fluent). And one of the early surprises for me was how soft and beautiful it can sound when spoken by a woman.

An example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEJDJnnfRc8

And this is more of a joke video, but it shows how most of the reputation of German being harsh comes more from its typical usage in movies than anything fundamentally harsh about the language: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLvL7a8Y0pI

My father said that when he heard a record of Lotte Lenya's, he couldn't believe that German could sound like that. Such German as he then knew, he had learned in the Army and then at an all-male college.