Music & Culture

For centuries composers have written love letters, but not by scratching words on paper. Their language is music. Hear five passionate outpourings by the likes of Mahler, Elgar, Janáček and Peter Lieberson.

The Roxy Music singer gives his classic songs a jazz makeover on his new album, The Jazz Age.

The singer-songwriter often writes songs about his complex relationships with women. On his new Electric, Thompson is still coming to terms with the sources of his frustrations, which ought to give him material for many years to come.

The My Morning Jacket singer seeks authenticity in a world of artifice on his first solo album, Regions of Light and Sound of God.

It's not easy, even for audio recorded in the last 10 years. The Library of Congress has released a plan for preserving the country's long but fragile archive of recorded audio.

The saxophonist and his quartet cross-pollinate Indian classical music and vintage Captain Beefheart to create complicated rhythms and solos reminiscent of jazz-rock fusion.

Call it diversity or a lack of consensus, but no single act dominated this year's awards. Instead, the Grammys spread the love, though rock bands — including The Black Keys and fun. — fared well.

It's Oscar season, meaning that classic toe-tapper "Hooray for Hollywood" will soon be booming out of TV speakers everywhere. But the cheery cinema hymn has a more complicated compositional past, as NPR's special correspondent Susan Stamberg explains.

For the fifth straight year, whether marveling at Taylor Swift's capacity for surprise or trying to figure out what to type during the combined 37 minutes of Bruno Mars performances, Linda Holmes and Stephen Thompson live-blogged the ceremony in an effort to serve your reading-along needs.

Hear world music DJ Betto Arcos' picks from Argentinean and Uruguayan artists.