Duke Ellington – Black, Brown, and Beige

This lengthy jazz “symphony” has many smaller sections and narrates the history of the African-American experience from Ellington’s perspective. An excellent example of jazz as a growing, sophisticated art form, this work serves as a great example of the “classicizing” of jazz and the blending of modern symphonic technique with jazz writing.

Arthur Honegger – Pacific 231

A member of the French modernist movement Les Six, Honegger represents a more experimental and mechanically influenced composer of the French school. His Pacific 231, with its compelling sounds of an approaching train, powerfully captures the ability of Modernist composers to engage their increasingly technical and mechanical world in alternative aural palates.

Charles Ives – Three Places in New England

Another work that demonstrates Ives’ love of clusters, musical collage, and quotation, this work also conveys Ives’ tendency to create musical American places. Here he divides his suite into three general New England locations and creates markers of space within each section. This work expresses the best of Ives’ Modernist tendencies and remains melodically memorable and quite popular for performance, particularly in the summer.