Classical

Classical Music critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews a new compact disc of the string quartets of Charles Ives, performed by the Lydian String Quartet. Schwartz says it's one of the best quartet performances on record.

Ryan Speedo Green grew up in a trailer park and did time in juvenile detention before discovering he had a unique singing voice. He now performs at New York's Metropolitan Opera.

Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen explores questions of time, memory, nature and human isolation. His recent collaboration with soprano and conductor Barbara Hannigan has garnered worldwide attention.

The opera, by the late composer Maurice Ravel, spins a modern fairy tale about a naughty child at bedtime. Critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews a new recording of it by conductor Seiji Ozawa.

The composer, conductor, teacher and music historian who coined the term Third Stream for his synthesis of jazz and classical music, died Sunday in Boston from complications of leukemia. He was 89.

In the 1940s, recording engineers perfected new sound techniques that were used in World War II — and which launched a hi-fi revolution. Lloyd Schwartz reviews the new 53-CD Decca box set.

Some 30 years ago, the Kronos Quartet created a sensation by releasing an album of chamber music that included an arrangement of Jimi Hendrix's "Purple Haze." Now Brooklyn Rider, another gifted string quartet, is again blurring the boundaries between classical and more popular kinds of chamber music. Fresh Air classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz says he admires that blur.

For the composer, life is how the past and the future connect. Glass' new memoir, Words Without Music, looks back on his childhood, travels through Asia and when his music provoked violence.

Many historic recordings have been transferred to CD, but not always as accurately as desirable. But a small record company in France has been remastering these recordings in a revolutionary way.

Among the best loved recordings from the 1950s were 15 LPs of Haydn string quartets played by the Schneider Quartet. They originally appeared on the Haydn Society label, but were never reissued on CD until now.

There are many recordings of Mozart's The Marriage of Figaro. Do we need another?

EMI has just reissued a broad spectrum of German conductor Otto Klemperer's recordings, including a box set of one of the composers he's most associated with: Gustav Mahler.

The mezzo-soprano discovered opera as a 22-year-old pre-med student. She took "a crack at a singing career" and has been at the Metropolitan Opera for 25 years. Now she's helping emerging singers.

Musician Marty Ehrlich doesn't play much on his new album; instead, he conducts an ensemble that performs his compositions. He tells Fresh Air about his first album devoted to his orchestral music.

At 44, the German tenor Jonas Kaufmann may be the most popular tenor of his generation in the international opera world, and one of the most versatile. Among his recordings this year are albums dedicated to both Verdi and Wagner, celebrating the bicentennials of their birth.

Live at Carnegie Hall captures a riveting experience with the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra and a beloved conductor, James Levine, who has been plagued with a variety of medical troubles.

Recently reissued Brahms and Mozart recordings by the Stuyvesant Quartet convey natural refinement, balance and a kind of inward grace. Fresh Air critic Lloyd Schwartz says they take their place among the most luminous chamber-music performances on record.

Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, is celebrating its 75th anniversary. To celebrate, the BSO is streaming a different historic Tanglewood concert on its website every day for 75 days.

Bach's oratorio The St. Matthew Passion has been called the Mount Everest of Western classical music. For some three and a half hours, it tells the story of Jesus' last days, based on the Gospel of St. Matthew. A new DVD deals with this monumental work in an original way.

The pianist's new album features some of the most difficult etudes ever written for solo piano by the Hungarian composer Gyorgy Ligeti. "Ligeti took the piano to places it had never been before," he says, "and makes demands of the pianist and the mind that had never been made before."