Johann Sebastian Bach’s “St. John Passion,” which had its premiere on Good Friday 1724, doesn’t so much begin as erupt. In the swirling, agitated strings and piercing cries of oboes ...

"Do you believe in magic?" a sweet-voiced John Sebastian asked with the 1960s folk-rock group Lovin' Spoonful, which landed him in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. A decade later he landed the ...