This virtuoso piece for 4 guitars is performed by the composer, Andrew York, and fellow his fellow musicians from the Los Angeles Guitar Quartet.

The (identical) first and last movements of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana are undoubtedly the most frequently borrowed 3 minutes of classical music ever written.

This exquisite piano miniature by the great French composer Claude Debussy, performed here by the Chinese pianist Lang Lang.

Aaron Copland was a revered 20th-century American classical composer. Fellow composer Ned Rorem said, “Thanks to Aaron, American music came into its own.”

Writer and political philosopher William F. Buckley said: “If Bach is not in Heaven … I am not going!” I would have to agree.

The Renaissance master Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s Latin setting of Psalm 42 is about as close to musical perfection as one can hear on earth.

Puccini, like other great songwriters, could spin a melody that goes into the ear, through the cerebral cortex, and from there straight to the heart.

This piece answers (very much in the affirmative) the question: “Is it possible to mimic a Ferrari or a Lamborghini in orchestral music?”.

Composer Benjamin Britten took melody and harmony from a Baroque era counterpart, Henry Purcell, and perfectly melded it with his own 20th century aesthetic.

The Sunday afternoon Young People’s Concerts on CBS featuring Lennie and the NY Phil — well, let’s just say they were my gateway drug into the world of classical music.

Welsh composer Karl Jenkins takes a medieval Latin Christmas text and jazzes it up with modern harmonies, rhythmic syncopation, and unexpected chord changes.

A devotee of hard rock and cheap marijuana I knew in college once told me, “I like Stravinsky … because every piece of his sounds different”. He was right.