Music for Teens
Much like our series Music for Boys, we have collected here musical performances (from a wide variety of styles) that we think will speak to teens.
Many selections will refer back to our ongoing Friday Performance Pick series and include links to even more commentary.
Listen in any order, but try to listen two or more times. As these selections become familiar, some may become your teens’ favorite pieces.
Cutting Edge
These “cutting edge” works may surprise you—each in its own way. From wildly energetic to sublimally beautiful, from intellectual to humorous, they represent some of the latest trends in music, much of it by young American composers!
Mackey, Asphalt Cocktail
John Mackey (b. 1973)
John Mackey is one of today’s most celebrated composers. His compositions are infused with an edgy energy, but filled with rich harmonies and soaring melodies. They can also be explosive, bubbling over with electrical energy, complex rhythms, and a fascinating array of percussive colors.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 120
Whitacre, Water Night
Eric Whitacre (b. 1970)
Whitacre has a knack for innovation in music and an astounding following, especially among young people. He essentially invented the “virtual choir” before anyone had heard of Zoom.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 70
Reich, Drumming
Steve Reich (b. 1936)
Minimalist music typically takes very limited resources and a simple idea and expands it into a composition of gradual change. As opposed to “development,” the music evolves. It may lack “Beethovenian” climaxes and drama, but it draws the listener into a thought-provoking musical journey.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 81
Ligeti, Six Bagatelles
György Ligeti (1923-2006)
A bagatelle is generally a short, humorous work. The term denotes something of little value (bagat a small possession + elle a diminutive suffix). Much of Ligeti’s music can be challenging for the average listener, but the Bagatelles are quite accessible and fun, but the Bagatelles are quite fun and accessible, particularly as performed so dynamically by the CARION quintet.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 9
Elder, Ballade to the Moon
Daniel Elder (b. 1986)
Elder has suffered the fate of being “canceled” for an innocent social-media post that some chose to misconstrue—a testament to the fragility of our times. Art is about beauty, and as one of the three transcendentals, beauty ought to transcend. Listen, because surely Elder’s musical voice far transcends that of his detractors.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 323
Jazz / Retro
Teens may not be naturally captivated by old-fashioned ways, but it’s hard not to be charmed by some of our greatest songwriters of not so long ago or the energy and excitement of the Big Band era. After all, this music was not written for old folks, and it retains its youthful appeal.
Kern, I’m Old Fashioned
Jerome Kern (1885-1945)
“I’m Old Fashioned” (lyrics by Johnny Mercer) was written for the 1942 film You Were Never Lovelier. It was presented, as you might expect, as a dance number with Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 250
Porter, I Love Paris
Cole Porter (1891-1964)
Porter’s first Broadway success came in 1928 with the musical Paris. In 1929, he wrote the film score for The Battle of Paris, and the same year wrote the Broadway musical Fifty Million Frenchmen. But the song I Love Paris was not in that musical. It was written instead for the 1953 musical Can-Can.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 303
Mintzer, New Mambo
Bob Mintzer (b. 1953)
The Big Band Era came to an end shortly after WWII, but virtuoso musicians refuse to let it die. Despite its often extreme syncopations, dense harmonies, and rhythmic complexity, big band music frequently retains a clarity that comes from each section having very distinct melodic lines. Big Band music is almost always challenging and sophisticated, but rarely obscure or confusing.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 399
Reflective
Perhaps nothing is so lacking in today’s music scene as quiet introspection. Please don’t treat these pieces as background music, but rather as moments to be fully embraced.
Debussy, Girl With the Flaxen Hair
Claude Debussy (1862-1918)
Girl With the Flaxen Hair is a very short piece from a collection of Préludes for solo piano (Book I, No. 8). One of the most popular of these engaging preludes, Girl With the Flaxen Hair has been arranged in many ways, including the soulful version here for trumpet and piano.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 13
Satie, Gymnopedie 1 & 2
Eric Satie (1866-1925)
Satie composed three Gymnopédie, all with strikingly beautiful melodies in the form of melancholy airs. They became quite popular through their use in movies and other media.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 187
Villa-Lobos, Chôros No. 1
Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959)
Songs called “choros” were associated with the serenading ensembles, which might include a variety of instruments, but always included a guitar or its smaller cousin, the cavaquinho. They mixed improvisation and virtuosity with sophisticated harmonies and counterpoint.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 207
Hahn, À Chloris
Reynaldo Hahn (1874-1947)
“À Chloris” was written in 1913 on a text by Théophile de Viau (1590-1626). Hahn employs a style reminiscent of the Baroque era with a repeated figure in the bass quoting Bach’s “Air on the G String” (Orchestral Suite No. 3).
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 147
Finzi, Five Bagatelles
Gerald Finzi (1901-1956)
Finzi had a strong interest in English folk melodies and the English countryside. Many of Finzi’s songs are based on the poetry of Thomas Hardy. This performance includes two of the Five Bagatelles, which can serve as a good introduction to the folk-like lyricism that permeates much of Finzi’s writing.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 402
Quirky
Some people think of “classical music” as stodgy and predictable, but it can be humorous, playful, rebellious, or satirical.
Shostakovich, Polka
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Shostakovich was one of the 20th-century’s most serious composers, but he rejoiced in putting humor into his music. Since we all listen to music with a set of expectation, humor disrupts those expectations and changes the balance of predictability and surprise.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 158
Say, Paganini Variations
Fazil Say (b. 1970)
Caprice No. 24 by Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840) has inspired many new compositions, from composers like Liszt, Brahms, and Rachmaninov, to modern composers like Lutoslavsky and Fazil Say. Say likes to mix jazz improvisations into his performances, and there’s an exuberance in his writing and playing that’s hard not to like.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 288
Classical
Any list of good music (no matter to whom it is directed) needs to include a sampling of the great works of Western culture. Here we merely scratch the surface with with a handful of works that we think will resonate with young listeners.
Mozart, Symphony No. 40 in G Minor
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791)
People respond to this work’s clarity of form, catchy themes, energy, and variety. It begins abruptly with no introduction. The opening theme relies on a repeated three-note rhythmic pattern with an energetic accompaniment.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 383
Beethoven, Piano Sonata No. 21 ("Waldstein")
Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827)
Few works by Beethoven are more dynamic and regal. Named for the patron who commissioned this work, this sonata marks the point where Beethoven forever leaves behind a lighter style of classicism and charges full-steam into the passions of Romanticism.
Chopin, Polonaise in A-Flat
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
The Polonaise is a stately processional dance still used today for Polish ceremonial occasions like weddings celebrations and graduations. Rooted firmly in Polish folk music, its melodies consist of short phrases typically cast in triple meter. In its earliest forms it was both sung and danced.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 236
Rimsky-Korsakov, Scheherazade
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844- 1908)
Based on the fabulous collection of Arabic folk tales known as One Thousand and One Nights, this dazzling composition paints in sound characters and events from those stories (Sinbad, the Kalendar Prince, Festival at Baghdad), all as though narrated by the brave maiden Scheherazade whose spinning of fantastic tales prevented the sultan from ending her life.
Copland, Appalachian Spring
Aaron Copland (1900-1990)
The work features the Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts” within a pastoral setting. But Copland transforms this simple material with polyrhythms and robust brass. It has become one of the most popular American musical works of the 20th century.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 84
Pre-Classical
Young listeners today may well encounter the works of Baroque composers like Bach and Handel, but are likely to miss earlier works from the Renaissance and Medieval eras. We hope this sampling might prompt some further exploration.
Handel, Royal Fireworks
George Friedrich Handel (1685-1759)
It was 1749 and the King of England wanted a celebration. It might have been expected that this event would be much like an earlier celebration on the River Thames in 1717 that was the occasion for Handel’s Water Music.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 72
Dowland, Now, Oh Now I Needs Must Part
John Dowland (1563-1626)
Dowland’s lute songs were huge hits in his own time and remain appealing today. Dowland gave himself the nickname “Semper Dowland, semper dolens” (always Dowland, always doleful), as his songs often were “melancholic”—a popular emotion in his day (the era of Shakespeare). Songs like “Flow My Tears” and “I Saw My Lady Weep” nicely represent Dowland’s prodigious output, although not all his songs reach such emotional depths.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 181
Josquin des Pres, El Grillo
Josquin Desprez (c. 1450-1455 – 1521)
Josquin earns his place in music history primarily through his contrapuntal masses and motets. We featured the Kyrie from his Missa Pange lingua in this series. But El grillo, a short whimsical song about crickets, is probably his most popular work.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 393
Hildegard von Bingen, Caritas
Hildegard von Bingen (c. 1098-1179)
Hildegard is one of the earliest composers we can identify by name. A saint, doctor of the church, mystic, and abbess, she experienced visions throughout her life. She eventually recorded her visions and left a significant body of writing on theology and natural science, as well as many pages of musical compositions.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 140
Opera Hits
Think you don’t like opera? Give it a try. Be amazed!
Of course, opera deserves to be heard on stage with the full effect of staging and drama, and most of these performances take place in a concert hall. Our Night at the Opera series gives you a more complete introduction, but these performances may whet your appetite.
Puccini, Nessun dorma
From the opera Turandot
by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
Nessun dorma is by any measure a great aria—perhaps the most popular aria in the opera repertoire—and it is powerful and stunningly beautiful.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 272
Delibes, Flower Duet
From the opera Lakmé
by Leo Delibes (1836-1891)
In the gorgeous “Flower Duet” (Act I), Lakmé (the daughter of a Brahmin priest) and her servant Millika gather flowers along the river, setting the stage for her first encounter with a British officer.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 175
Puccini, O mio babbino caro
From the opera Gianni Schicchi
by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924)
“O mio babbino caro” is from Puccini’s one-act comedy Gianni Schicchi. Even if you don’t know the opera, you may still recognize the tune from its frequent use in movies or advertisements.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 144
Bizet, The Flower Song
From the opera Carmen
by Georges Bizet (1838-1875)
The music of Bizet’s Carmen (1875) has gained a popularity that few operas can match. People with little exposure to opera are likely to recognize the Toreador Song and the Habanera. There are many other great moments in the opera, including this Flower Song.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 304
Folk / Heritage
Folk music, and folk culture in all its forms, preserves our history and ties the current generation to generations past. Folk songs undergo constant refinement as they are passed down. They lend themselves to new interpretations, just as each of these examples sets the old in a contemporary context.
Children Go Where I Send Thee
Traditional
Kenny Rogers became a country-music hero, yet he sang songs of many styles and origins. Here is an engaging performance where he, accompanied by a group of wonderful young singers present “Children Go Where I Send Thee.” It is a negro spiritual in the form of a “cumulative song.” Cumulative songs involve sequential numbering and a repeated pattern—obvious in this song and others like “The Twelve Days of Christmas,” “Green Grow the Rushes Ho,” and “I Bought Me a Cat.”
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 264
Foster, Hard Times Come Again No More
Stephen Foster (1826-1864)
Many of Stephen Foster’s songs have become mainstays of American culture—virtual folk songs. They have been reworked and recast, and their relative simplicity makes them adaptable to many styles.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 230
Edward
Traditional, Child Ballad 13
Francis James Child, who catalogued 305 folk songs, described this ballad as “one of the noblest and most sterling specimens of the popular ballad.” It tells an archetypal tale of fratricide, a tale that figured prominently in Genesis and in many other guises down the ages.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 291
The Wellermen
Sea Shanty
Sea shanties were meant to be sung by a group. They are one manifestation of work songs that have the practical purpose of keeping workers in sync. Hard physical labor requiring a group effort needs coordination whether it’s hammering spikes on the railroad or heaving on ropes.
Featured in Friday Performance Pick 351