Hans Knappertsbusch (1888-1965) had a special affinity for Wagner—a connection to the source. In the early years of the last century, he was an assistant to the composer’s son Siegfried and a pupil of Hans ...

This recording has been an audiophile favorite for decades. Engineer David R. Hancock captured a rather dry but clarifying acoustic in McFarlin Auditorium at Southern Methodist University in May of 1967, and the sonics stop ...

Wayne Garcia lauded the HDCD iteration of this program in Issue 201 for its musical virtues and its exceptional transparency and realism. Reference Recordings has now released the same program as an SACD—the company’s first. ...

This 2-SACD set completes the Michael Tilson Thomas/San Francisco Symphony Mahler cycle, unquestionably the most successful from an American orchestra and conductor since Leonard Bernstein’s iconic 1960s recordings. Following an intense performance of the Adagio ...

Benjamin Britten’s song cycles are among his best and best-known works. Though some maintain that versions by Peter Pears, Britten’s artistic and domestic partner for most of his creative life, are “definitive,” that singer’s voice ...

Arvo Pärt’s music, both choral and instrumental, often uses religious texts for a starting point. How apt that the 75-year- old composer based his Symphony No. 4, commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, on the ...

Valery Gergiev, highly regarded for his passionate performances of Russian repertoire, Wagner, and Mahler, affirms his versatility with compelling interpretations of three Ravel staples. His Daphnis et Chloe— the entire ballet, complete with chorus—is voluble ...

Everything on this superbly played recital of modern music for clarinet and piano by four American composers is flavored, whether openly or more subliminally, by that most American musical invention, jazz. Gershwin’s catchy Three Preludes ...

Born in 1942, Swedish composer Sven- David Sandström first came to attention for his complex orchestral works. For 20 years, however, Sandström was a member of the Hägersten Motet Choir, near Stockholm. In that nurturing ...

Complete string quartets? Aren’t there just two? Not exactly. The Kreutzer Sonata and Intimate Letters quartets are both from Janácek’s last years, inspired by his intense romantic attachment to Kamila Stösslová, a much younger woman. ...

The American composer Henry Brant, who died in 2008 at the age of 94, is chiefly remembered for his highly original “spatial music.” Brant wrote more than 100 works in which the physical placement of ...

Federico Mompou (1893-1987) is often referred to as a “minimalist.” But there are different stripes of minimalism. Mompou’s is not of the rarified La Monte Young or hyperactive Philip Glass varieties, but rather in the ...

Lisbon-born Artur Pizarro grew up hearing this music by two masters of keyboard composition from the other side of the Iberian Peninsula. His performances breathe with the natural ease of long familiarity. The pianist’s lyrical ...

Howard Shore’s many high-profile film scores include most of David Cronenberg’s movies, The Silence of the Lambs, and The Aviator. His grandest achievement, however, is his music for The Lord of the Rings—this earned him ...

For his hour-long song cycle, Steven Mackey’s protagonist is a “lovelorn psychologist”; 200 years ago, this sensitive soul would have been a poet. He’s holed up in a seedy motel, remembering, grieving, and mentally unraveling. ...