Unfamiliar beauties of distant cultures tell human stories through art, film, movement, and music. Mozart and Bizet expanded their expressive palettes by borrowing from other folk traditions.

Mahler’s Third is his “Pastoral Symphony.” It seems propelled throughout by nature’s bold power. The opening march represents the arrival of spring in the Austrian Alps—the earth groans, giant ice sheets crack, and cataracts spill forth from mountain streams. The middle movements move in stages up the Great Chain of Being, from raw matter, through many varieties of forms of life, and ultimately to the realm of the spirit.

Brahms Requiem celebrates the living while composer Timothy Adams tells the story of Harriet Tubman—nurse, spy, reformer, and conductor on the Underground Railroad.