Reading and Listening

The finale of Bach's Fourth Brandenburg Concerto offers a clear illustration of Bach’s fugal technique, which he explored at profound length in The Art of Fugue, composed at the end of his life.

Bach's Musical Offering likewise dates from the later years of Bach's life, alongside The Art of Fugue. This arrangement of the Ricercare movement–another crystalline example of Bach's highly sophisticated fugal technique–by twentieth-century composer Anton Webern examines the work as viewed through the lens of the Second Viennese School, which will be discussed in Alex Ross's The Rest is Noise.

Charles Ives, a towering figure in the history of Western music, casts an especially imposing shadow over America's musical heritage. He is universally regarded as the founding father of American music in the twentieth century. His Third Symphony is emblematic of the singular artistic and cultural values of this quintessentially American voice.

In the 1920s, encounters between high arts and jazz culture were very much the flavor of the times, and Milhaud wrote in what he called a “jazz idiom.” This piece reflects both that preoccupation and a centuries-old French penchant for exotica.

This work was one of seven such pieces by the composer that viewed the 17th- and 18th-century concerto grosso through the lens of the 1920s. The initial idea came to Hindemith when the publishing house Schott invited him to judge a chamber-concerto competition. Though the 108 entries he surveyed left Hindemith unimpressed, the idea of concertos for one or more solo instruments and small ensemble obviously gripped his imagination.

Webern was Arnold Schoenberg’s first student and most loyal disciple. This piece exemplifies both the intellectual rigor and the exquisite expressive depth inherent in Schoenberg’s revolutionary twelve-tone method of composition.

Apollon Musagete is a piece composed in the neoclassical style. Neoclassicism was a reaction to the modernist strains in early twentieth-century music. Its straightforward harmonic lines and clear textures audibly draw from the aesthetic of Haydn and Mozart, while nevertheless reflecting the values of modern times, resulting in a wholly new brand of musical invention.

Another piece composed in the neoclassical style, with balanced, Mozartean phrases – an odd sound for music emerging from the ruins of World War II.

Written when he was only 16 years old, the Opus 20 Octet – universally lauded as one of the finest works in the chamber music literature – is evidence of the child Mendelssohn's miraculously prodigious talent. The piece is a tribute to his first violin teacher, and remains a favorite of musicians and music-lovers to this day.