Anthony Brandt, a musicologist whose work focuses on music cognition, talks about what this musical form and how human beings approach open-ended problems.

"A musical mystery. Sir Edward Elgar's 'Enigma Variations' have confounded music scholars and music fans since its premiere. Elgar tells us that the theme is never actually played during the piece. So ...

What makes Bach's Goldberg Variations tick? Pianist Jeremy Denk has a few ideas. From the comfort of his living room piano, he reveals how Bach's musical DNA — a simple strand of bass notes — is ...

But the theme, 20 short variations and coda bulge with so much rhythmic and coloristic appeal that it's hard to imagine the music seemed so forbidding at its premiere. Ax gave Copland's explosion of ...

A duo combination of saxophone and drums doesn’t appear to hold much promise for musical variation. But when the players are the versatile English saxophonist-woodwind artist John Surman and drummer ...