Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5

By the summer of 1809, Napoleon’s French forces, at war with Austria for the fourth time in eighteen years, reached the suburbs of Vienna. “Nothing but drums, cannons, human misery of every sort!” wrote Beethoven to his publisher in Leipzig. But by year’s end, he had completed his Piano Concerto No. 5, Emperor, a magnificent affirmation made in terrible times.

R. Strauss’ "Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks"

Richard Strauss just wanted to give the people in the concert hall a good laugh. His tone poem Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks turned out to be one of the most sophisticated pieces of musical humor ever created.

Ives' Symphony No. 4

Charles Ives' Symphony No. 4 is the classic mash-up of 19th century Americana: hymns, anthems, marches and dance tunes all woven together in a collage that is by turns messy, complicated, sentimental and chaotic, but ultimately transcendent—kind of like life itself.

Mahler's Symphony No. 4

Mahler's sunny Symphony No. 4 ends with a song—a child's description of heaven. But it is also full of reminders of the vastness of his musical universe.

Ives' Symphony No. 3, "The Camp Meeting"

Charles Ives' music is the archetypal "mash-up" of classic Americana. His Symphony No. 3 was inspired by the gentler, more spiritual side of the religious revivals he attended with his family as a child.

Bernstein's "The Age of Anxiety," Symphony No. 2

Leonard Bernstein based his Symphony No. 2 on W.H. Auden's Pulitzer Prize-winning poem The Age of Anxiety. Auden didn't think much of the work, but for Bernstein, it was very personal.

Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1

Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his first symphony while he was still a student, but it contains all of the elements of his mature work: the comedy and the tragedy.