Cultural and Technological Changes of the Enlightenment

Johann Sebastian Bach

Do you like classical music? Even if you do not, you might be impressed by symphonies and by how a spectacularly large grouping of instruments develops to form a musical group. Have you ever heard all of those instruments and wondered "how did the composer come up with all those different parts for each of the instruments and write it down so that different musicians could perform them?"

Visit the National Public Radio website to read a short essay about how the ideas of rationality and equality, which were popular during the Enlightenment, had a profound effect on the composers of the time.