Music Reviews

Battles turned quite a few heads with 2007’s Mirrored. Like Tortoise, the band took experimental prog rock and made it cool for the lo-fi/postpunk set.

In his monumental six-part work The Oxford History of Western Music, Richard Taruskin begins the volume devoted to the 19th century with Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, which debuted in Vienna in 1805 before its final revised version was staged there in 1814. Here we have an opus of searing intensity that signaled the arrival of Romanticism in music.

Sure, it’s great when one musician can collaborate with another in a faraway country and end up with something impressive — even when the two never spend any time together in a studio. The wonders of the digital age have made it easy to carry on long-distance recording relationships.