Here is a composer I stumbled across today quite by accident, Johann Stamitz.

I was so taken with his joyful style and especially this performance by an Australian Orchestra that I thought I would simply pass it on to you. Stamitz, it turns out, was a leading figure in a musical movement that I had never heard of before, the influential Mannheim school which flourished in Heidelberg in the early 18th century. It had influence on the styles of Haydn and Mozart (so Wikipedia tells me).

They are known for a number of musical innovations including the Mannheim Rocket (a swiftly ascending passage typically having a rising arpeggiated melodic line together with a crescendo); and the Mannheim Roller (an extended crescendo passage typically having a rising melodic line over a bass line consisting of a repeated pattern of notes).

And so now it is all coming together. T the Mannheim Steamroller is a 1980s electronic music group who cleverly named themselves so as to create an in joke for classical music buffs that until now floated over the heads of ignoramuses like me :). Readers of the this column who know this SF (Significant Fact) can now take satisfaction from the fact that they are now eligible to apply to be admitted officially to the ranks of the cognoscenti. There you will find out otherwise secret information on how to make it to the next rung in the hierarchy of the cultured, the chattering classes. (But be careful you don’t go further. Otherwise , you might even make it to the swamp, in which one ascends to the bottom, so to speak, by returning to the same level as pond life in the hierarchy of being.)

Other than that, I hope you enjoy the music as much as I did.

David Clayton is Provost at Pontifex University, which partners with the Theology of the Body Institute on the wonderful Master’s program in the Theology of the Body and the New Evangelization. You can contact David at dclayton@pontifex.university on any of the topics mentioned below. Go to  www.Pontifex.University for information on the Master’s, and Theology Doctorate programs; to www.thewayofbeauty.org/books/ to find his publications;  and to www.thewayofbeauty.org/visionforyou for information on the Vision for You process for discernment of personal vocation and spiritual exercises for the conversion of the heart.