After defending myself against recent composer FAILs (believe me, the other two are coming) and hearing the news that Milton Babbitt is no longer with us (I heard he liked beer AND baseball, so how awesome is that?), I thought I'd post Webern's orchestration of Bach's "Ricercar a 6" from "The Musical Offering."
How amazing is this orchestration? It's like Webern took your garage-sale china dishes, happily smashed them while you were away, and constructed a mosaic so wonderful that you forgot you had broken dishes to begin with.
I was obsessed with this piece when I was doing a presentation for my timbre studies class, trying to figue out how Webern fuses three instruments to create a cohesive fugal subject. If I were to teach an orchestration class, we would be studying this work thoroughly.