By Charles Burns, assistant editor/production assistant
I love music that puts itself in conversation with the past. Every track on this playlist was borrowed, sampled, or reconstructed from an earlier work. Some tracks may immediately declare their pedigree to you. Others may give you that slower, uncanny tingle of recognition. Still others may be completely new to you.
The genres and methods vary wildly — which is half the fun! Stravinsky conjures the 18th century in Pulcinella, dressing up Giovanni Pergolesi (or what he thought was Pergolesi) in his own idiosyncratic tailoring. Luciano Berio wanders the ruins of Schubert’s unfinished 10th Symphony in Rendering, restoring the fragments and filling the gaps with a shimmering fog. Max Richter recomposes Vivaldi. Caroline Shaw’s Blueprint grows from the harmonic DNA of a Beethoven string quartet. J Dilla chops Raymond Scott and the Jackson 5 into the legendary hip-hop album Donuts. Nina Simone turns Gershwin’s “I Loves You, Porgy” into a towering statement of faith, a testimony. Jason Moran reforms the old standard “Body and Soul” into something fresh and new. Threaded throughout are Tōru Takemitsu’s loving, delightfully devotional guitar arrangements of Gershwin, Arlen, and the Beatles.
