= Easy: appealing melody and simple structure that you are likely to appreciate after one or two listens

= Intermediate: some first-listen appeal but more complex structure that can grow on you

= Difficult: may leave you cold on first listen, but given a chance can become enormously rewarding and often more interesting than the easier works

Gustav Holst -- The Planets

In this English composer's most popular work, inspired by astrology (he told horoscopes), Earth is not included, and Pluto had not yet been discovered. The titles aptly describe the mood of each piece:

Mars, the Bringer of War
Venus, the Bringer of Peace
Mercury, the Winged Messenger
Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity
Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age
Uranus, the Magician
Neptune, the Mystic

Highly recommended.

Erik Satie -- Pieces pour Piano
Lovely turn of the century piano music by a French composer who collaborated with the Dadaists.

At the time of his death in 1925, absolutely no one had entered the room he had lived in for the past 27 years. In it, his friends found compositions either unknown or thought lost, a great number of umbrellas, a portrait of Satie painted by the woman who broke his heart after a 6-month affair in 1893 (the only intimate relationship of his life), and four pianos -- two of which were back to back, and two of which sat upside-down on top of the other two.

(One of the compositions found was Vexations, the first marathon performance of which took place in 1963 and lasted 18 hours and 40 minutes, performed by a relay of pianists, including John Cage and John Cale.)

no audio samples

Charles Ives -- Symphony 4 (depending on the part)
Ives was one of the first American composers of international stature. His music was virtually ignored during his lifetime but illustrated almost every major musical innovation of the 20th Century. The Fourth Symphony, his colossal masterpiece, was composed from 1910 to 1916 but not given a complete performance until 1965, over a decade after his death. The 1965 recording by conductor Stokowski is the definitive performance.

I first heard one of Ives's works in a college music appreciation class and outside of class discovered his Fourth Symphony. When I mentioned it to my instructor, he exclaimed, "Ah, the one he composed after he went crazy!" It remains my all-time favorite symphony.

(not the Stokowski recording)

John Alden Carpenter -- Krazy Kat
Henry F. Gilbert -- The Dance in Place Congo
John Powell -- Rhapsodie Negre
Adolph Weiss -- American Life (Scherzoso Jazzoso)

Four American composers influenced by Jazz, collected on this New World Records recording.

The same label also has a collection of Carpenter's wonderful solo piano works, which I highly recommend if you love piano.

Bela Bartok -- Concerto for Orchestra / Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta
Considered one of the greatest composers of the 20th Century, Bartok at the age of four was playing some 40 pieces on the piano, and at the age of 11 gave his first public recital, including a work he penned two years earlier, to critical praise. He was a pioneer in ethnomusicology, collecting and studying Eastern European folk music.

As the Nazi poison spread through Europe, he fled to the United States, where he lived in near-poverty (teaching) until his death in New York in 1945. In 1980, his remains were re-interred in his native Budapest, Hungary.

His most famous work, Concerto for Orchestra, was composed in 1943, when he was dying of leukemia. Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta was composed in 1936. Highly recommended.

Igor Stravinsky -- Symphony of Psalms (Stravinsky in general) (this work)
Named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people of the century, Stravinsky is acknowledged as one of the most important composers of the 20th Century. No matter what period of his life, his music always took audiences by surprise.

The premiere of his Rite of Spring ballet in Paris in 1913 caused catcalls and booing in the audience, then loud arguments and fistfights in the aisles, and then spilled out into a full riot. The Paris police arrived at intermission, but still chaos ensued for the remainder of the performance. The choreographer had to call out beats to the dancers because they couldn't hear the orchestra over the audience noise.

Arnold Schoenberg -- Chamber Symphony 2
Schoenberg was a revolutionary influence on 20th Century music, making an impact on generations of composers who followed. His impact on audiences was that high art music would evermore sound "difficult," shattered, like Cubism, and reassembled into perplexing fragments.

The rise of Hitler and the Nazis drove him from Berlin to Paris, and eventually to the United States (where fellow composer George Gershwin was his tennis partner).

Schoenberg had triskaidekaphobia, fear of the number 13. An astrologer warned him that his 76th birthday would be critical (7 + 6 = 13). That year (1951) he took to bed, ill and upset, and died -- on Friday, the 13th of July.

The Second Chamber Symphony may sound cold to virgin ears, but if you can bring yourself to "understand" it (on an instinctive level), it builds to an absolutely thrilling climax, well worth the effort. Included on this recording is Verklarte Nacht, one of his most popular works.

Heitor Villa-Lobos -- Fantasia for Cello / Uirapuru
Villa-Lobos is the most outstanding Brazilian -- and indeed Latin American -- composer of the 20th Century. The Fantasia for Cello is characteristically Villa-Lobos: romantic and melodic. Uirapuru is mysterious and dramatic, like the Brazilian jungle Villa-Lobos explored in his impressionable youth.

Heitor Villa-Lobos -- Bachianas Brasileiras
The nine suites that comprise the Bachianas Brasileiras (literally, "Brazilian Bach pieces", composed 1930-45) meld Brazilian folk music with the influence of Bach into some of Villa-Lobos's most popular works.

John Cale -- Falklands Suite (on the CD Words for the Dying)
Cale set four Dylan Thomas poems to music -- and sets them afire.

Aaron Copland -- The Red Pony / Music for Films
Copland tapped the vitality of American folk and popular music to create concert and film music with sentiment, grace, and majesty. Highly recommended.

Various Composers -- Symphonic Tango, conducted by Ettore Stratta
Tango, like much popular music through the ages -- right up to hip-hop, sprang from the "dangerous" underclass. Early tango lyrics told of poverty, alcohol and cocaine addiction, prostitution, lovers quarrels, and fatal knife fights. Flamenco, polka, and African rhythms are a few of the influences flowing into Tango.