Carmina burana

Who could have imagined a scholarly work derived from medieval texts could become a popular anthem, the soundscape for pop culture, and the musical backdrop for action in films from Star Wars and Glory to commercials for Gatorade and Domino’s Pizza? Certainly not Carl Orff, whose inspired themes of love and fate arose from his dreams of an “elemental music” that combined dance, poetry, and image. Regardless of its adoption by moviemakers and marketers, Carmina burana remains one of the most thrilling works you’ll ever hear in a concert hall.

Dubbed “the Black Mahler,” Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was a brilliant composer, championed by Edward Elgar but bedeviled by persistent poverty; he died of pneumonia at just 37, before his talents were fully appreciated. His headstone bears this inscription from a poet friend: “Too young to die: his great simplicity, his happy courage in an alien world, his gentleness made all that knew him love him.” His Ballade in A minor raises the pulse, arranged like a poem in stanzas, but fueled by impatient genius, a 13-minute thrill ride that leaves the listener breathless.

Gabriela Ortiz imagines the interior life of Clara and Robert Schumann, a storm-tossed union marked by Robert’s mental health struggles and both blessed and complicated by the births of eight children. Drenched in “beguiling colors,” this is music of “incredible energy, thrilling in a way that one has rarely heard in a classical concert hall” (New York Classical Review).