It’s easy to think of a composer writing a piece as a romantic gift to a potential lover. Wow, lucky guy/girl, we think. But what about when a composer writes a masterpiece as a friendly gift to a 6 & 7 year old girl & boy? Bah, ungrateful little brats!

I’m kidding, of course. But still, we can be sure that this young pair had no idea of the honor bestowed upon them when Maurice Ravel wrote his Mother Goose Suite as a present for them. Though the original composition was for piano, within a year Ravel had expanded the work into a full ballet and orchestrated it. It has since become a beloved classic of “children’s’ music” (that is to say, music for all ages). The suite includes tells some common fairy tales like Sleeping Beauty, Tom Thumb, Little Ugly, and Beauty and the Beast. It ends with this gorgeous pastorale, The Fairy Garden, which doesn’t tell any specific story, but instead captures the simple rapture of children listening to a good tale.

On this day in 1957, West Side Story opened on Broadway. It has since become a permanent part of American music culture – everybody knows and loves this show and its singing, snapping, dancing gangs. When Leonard Bernstein wrote the music to this show, he had just been appointed music director of the New York Philharmonic. The fact that the conductor of one of the world’s finest orchestras was also writing for music theater showed the depth and breadth of Bernstein’s abilities.

Before Edvard Grieg became Norway’s main musical man, there was a guy named Rikard Nordraak who was in the running for the position. Nordraak is the composer of the Norwegian national anthem, but sadly died when he was only 23, leaving behind only a handful of works. Saddened by the sudden and untimely death of his friend (they were only born a year apart), Grieg wrote a Funeral March in his honor. He was so fond of the work that he asked it to be played at his own funeral (which it was.) This slow, heavy music can help to express and relieve the pain that we feel when someone we love dies too soon.