Glenn Miller: Moonlight Serenade

19th-century composers reoriented classical music around emotional appeal, dramatically expressing their innermost feelings, often attaching programmatic titles so audiences wouldn't miss the point. Declarations of love were surpassed only by intimations of melancholy. A century later, Romanticism reached jazz. True, Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata (1801) had been around longer, but Glenn Miller's "Moonlight Serenade" sold more records. One glance at vintage black-&-white photos of starry-eyed juveniles thronging the bandstand where an immaculately attired Miller held sway, ramrod stiff next to his trademark clarinet-led sax section, explains his popularity. "Moonlight Serenade" was as rapturously romantic as Moonlight Sonata, and twice as good for dancing.