Edexcel A2 Instrumental Set Works 2012: Cage, Shostakovich, Ram Narayan

The seven Instrumental Music set works for the A2 examination in 2012 include three very different pieces of music from the 20th century. The earliest, Cage’s Sonatas and Interludes is perhaps the most striking, being as it is written by one of the century’s most innovative composers. Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 8 is one of fifteen string quartets written by one of the century’s most prominent and original composers – a man who struggled throughout his life to allow his true compositional voice to be heard. Rag Bhairav, played by Ram Narayan and Chanranjit Lal, is an example of a very ancient tradition of classical music from Northern India, and is arguably the oldest and best known Indian rag.