Many composers have written serenades – lighter, less intense, works with catchy melodies. Such is Johannes Brahms’ Serenade No. 1. Unsatisfied with the first version for just nine instruments, the often picky 25-year-old composer destroyed the original and rewrote it for chamber orchestra. As a serenade, it bridges the transition from Mozart to emerging Romanticism in music, and audiences continue to enjoy it for its spontaneous, pastoral nature. Igor Stravinsky’s “Dumbarton Oaks” Concerto, commissioned for the 30th wedding anniversary of U.S. diplomat Robert Woods Bliss and Mildred Barnes Bliss, is a lively neoclassic masterpiece for just 15 instruments, but its shape pays homage to Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos. Conductor Alejandro Gomez Guillen also leads Charles Ives’ The Unanswered Question, a brief, eclectic work that’s a musical expression of a deep philosophical question. Today, the three-layer musical collage is one of the iconoclastic composer’s most popular works.