Johann Sebastian Bach is one of those amazing people who are so amazing, that the more you learn about them, you become more and more amazed at how amazing they are, and you realize that, at first, you didn’t truly know the depth of their amazingness.

I’m guessing that Bach is the second-most-written-about composer (first would be Beethoven) – but this is largely because Beethoven was a wild personality, while Bach was a very normal person. The worst things Bach did was not show up for work for a couple months (after a self-extended vacation in Lubeck), and pull a sword on a bassoonist (and really, who hasn’t done that?) He had a job, and children, and drank coffee and beer. This is not the stuff of scathing biographies.

But his music is insanely amazing (I’m sorry to say, way beyond anything Beethoven wrote). It’s lovable at every level. The untrained ear will enjoy rich harmony, florid melodies, and an expressive depth of emotion. The moderately trained ear will notice intricate repeating patterns – how he could take a single four-note-idea and develop it into a massive work – like making a life-sized cathedral out of just 5 different types of Lego blocks. The trained ear starts to find deeper layers of complexity in his music, hidden messages, numerology, key symbolism, among other things. And all the while, it just sounds great.

Here is his Orchestral Suite in b minor, for flute and strings.

Well howdy pardner! What’s saying you and me git us a couple bottles of sarsaparilly and head on down to yonder ballet and watch them bally dancers dance all purdy like?

Iconic American composer Aaron Copland wrote a number of ballets based on iconic American themes – Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid, and Rodeo. Today’s piece is the opening movement of Rodeo, titled “Buckaroo Holiday.” May it bring out the inner cowboy in you.

… And if you don’t know how, Anitra will be happy to teach you.

Anitra is a character in the Norwegian play Peer Gynt, written by Henrik Isben. The play is a satire of Norway and Norwegians, their peculiarities, their mythology, and their humor (if you can call it that.) Isben asked Norway’s composer poster-child, Edvard Grieg, to write music for the play. Later, Grieg created two suites using music he wrote for the play, which have become orchestral favorites the world around. Not too shabby for a country of fishermen, whose total population today is less than 6 million.