Eine kleine Nactmusik, K525
Composer: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Composed: 1787
You’ve heard the famous first movement maybe a million times: In movies, TV shows, commercials, and on stages time and time again—maybe you even played it with your middle school orchestra. Translated quite literally to “A Little Night Music,” this serenade has been noted by critics as the most enduringly popular of all of Mozart’s works. Interestingly enough, unlike the majority of his work, there is no record of it being commissioned by any one person or institution. Albert Einstein hypothesized that Mozart wrote the piece to fulfill a personal need—something otherwise unheard of for the prodigious professional.
Symphony No. 9 in D minor Op. 125
Composer: Ludwig van Beethoven
Composed: 1824
A list of popular classical music wouldn’t be complete without Beethoven. Symphony No. 9, which Beethoven wrote while completely deaf, is not only considered the composer’s greatest work, but is arguably the best piece of music ever written. The hour-long symphony features “Ode to Joy” in its fourth movement—the most famous musical manifestation of human happiness that exists in the Western world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHuGktVssdc
Orpheus in the Underworld: Infernal Gallop
Composer: Jacques Offenbach
Composed: 1858
Practically anyone can whistle the “can-can” on command. But how many people can tell you where it comes from or how they even know it? Embodying pure joy, this small—but erroneously dubbed—melody is part of a much greater story. In fact, it is only a tiny segment of the first-ever full-length classical operetta. Written by the great romantic-era composer, Jacques Offenbach, the music serves as an accompaniment to Offenbach’s scathing satirical plot, which was not originally well-received thanks to its vulgar scenes and rather ruthless parodying of well-respected composers.
Rhapsody in Blue
Composer: George Gershwin
Composed: 1924
Commissioned by Paul Whiteman to create a “jazz concerto,” American pianist George Gershwin composed the exuberant masterpiece known as “Rhapsody in Blue” while on a single train ride to Boston. An intricate fusion of classical and jazz styles, this seminal piece was originally created for solo piano and jazz band, but in 1942, its scores were also published for symphony orchestra. Gershwin has referred to the piece as the “musical kaleidoscope of America” and it seems to capture the essence of America’s conceptual ‘melting pot’ and characteristic national pep with its perpetual movement, innovative harmonic structures, and heightened contrasts. In popular culture, this piece is notoriously associated with New York City (Fantasia 2000, anyone?), which is certainly an appropriate coupling due to the piece’s bouncing, metropolitan feel.
