Classics Go Jazz

That statement alone might provoke a musicologist’s raised eyebrow. Yet long before jazz was born, composers were already exploring its rhythmic DNA. The syncopated aria of Bach’s cantata Christus, der ist mein Leben hints at swing more than two centuries ahead of its time, while Beethoven’s final piano sonata contains a passage often cited as the first example of pure swing in Western music. Brahms opens a sonata movement with a walking bass worthy of the Mississippi Delta, and Mussorgsky seems to foreshadow Quincy Jones. This collection reveals these remarkable connections before exploring jazz’s profound influence on twentieth-century classical music.