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Among the world's leading violinists, Hilary Hahn emerged in the late 1990s as a prodigy, gaining an enthusiastic international audience before she reached the age of 18. In the decade to follow, she was celebrated for her recordings of standard concerto repertoire from Bach to Barber, as well as for contemporary works by Edgar Meyer and Jennifer Higdon. The latter two composed violin concertos for Hahn that premiered in 1999 and 2009, respectively. In the 2010s, she reached the top of the Billboard classical chart with Hilary Hahn Plays Higdon & Tchaikovsky: Violin Concertos (2010) and Hilary Hahn Plays Bach: Sonatas 1 & 2, Partita 1 (2018).

Born in Lexington, Virginia in 1979, Hilary Hahn began playing the violin in a Baltimore Suzuki class just before she turned four. She started studying with a private tutor, Klara Berkovich, about a year later. They worked together for the next five years at Peabody Prep, after which she auditioned for a spot at the Curtis Institute of Music. She was accepted, and violinist Jascha Brodsky (then 83 years old) took her on as a student. Hahn gave her first full recital at Peabody in 1990, and she made her major orchestral debut a little over a year later, performing with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. She made her European debut four years later at age 15, appearing on a radio broadcast with Lorin Maazel and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Splitting her time between home schooling and the Curtis Institute, Hahn completed her high-school diploma and bachelor's degree requirements by the time she was 16, around the time Sony Classical came forward with a record deal. Hahn was still studying with Brodsky at the time and continued to do so until his death in 1997. That year saw the release of her first album, Hilary Hahn Plays Violin. Hahn debuted at Carnegie Hall soon after. In the meantime, she had opted to remain at the Curtis Institute, where she took literature classes and honed her performance skills until 1999. That year, she released her second album, which paired Beethoven's Violin Concerto and Bernstein's Serenade, and she performed her first commissioned work, the Edgar Meyer Violin Concerto. A recording of that piece was released the next year (Barber & Meyer Violin Concertos), followed by 2001's Brahms & Stravinsky Violin Concertos, which went on to earn a Grammy for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance. Hahn released one more album with Sony, 2002's Mendelssohn & Shostakovich Concertos, before signing a deal with Deutsche Grammophon, which issued Bach: Concertos in 2003.

Hahn was considered a world-class violinist by that time and found herself in high demand over the course of the next few years, making numerous appearances worldwide. She was the violin soloist in James Newton Howard's score for M. Night Shyamalan's 2004 film The Village. In 2005. she branched out into crossover music in a series of concerts with American singer and songwriter Tom Brosseau, and two years later, she appeared in concert in crossover fare once again, this time with Josh Ritter. Hahn also collaborated with the indie rock group ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead. Meanwhile, she issued recordings of works by Mozart, Elgar, and Paganini, among others, and 2008's Schoenberg, Sibelius: Violin Concertos won Hahn a Grammy for instrumental soloist performance (with orchestra). A year later, she commissioned a concerto from Jennifer Higdon. It earned the composer a Pulitzer Prize in 2010, and the recording released that September on Deutsche Grammophon featured Hahn alongside the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. That year, she also had a Top Ten classical album with Bach: Violin and Voice, featuring baritone Matthias Goerne and soprano Christine Schäfer.

Following albums of Mozart, Korngold, and Ives, Hahn collaborated with German prepared piano player Hauschka (aka Volker Bertelmann) on 2012's Silfra, which was entirely improvised. She then began the project In 27 Pieces: The Hilary Hahn Encores, commissioning pieces from a variety of composers to use on tours through the 2012-2013 season. The album won a Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance in 2015. That year, Sony released Hilary Hahn: The Complete Sony Recordings.

Deutsche Grammophon issued its own retrospective collection of her recordings in 2018, which also saw the release of Hilary Hahn Plays Bach: Sonatas 1 & 2, Partita 1, her debut for Decca. The latter went to number one on the classical albums chart. ~ Blair Sanderson

Arnold Schoenberg remains one of the most controversial figures in the history of music. From the final years of the 19th century to the period following World War II, Schoenberg produced music of great stylistic diversity, inspiring fanatical devotion from students; admiration from peers like Mahler, Strauss, and Busoni; riotous anger from conservative Viennese audiences; and unmitigated hatred from his many detractors.

Born in Vienna on September 13, 1874 into a family that was not particularly musical, Schoenberg was largely self-taught. An amateur cellist, he demonstrated from an early age a particular aptitude for composition. He received rudimentary instruction in harmony and counterpoint from Oskar Adler and studied composition briefly with Alexander Zemlinsky, his eventual brother-in-law. Early in his career, Schoenberg took jobs orchestrating operettas, but most of his life was spent teaching, both privately and at various institutions, and composing. His moves between teaching jobs were as much a result of seeking respite from the bouts of ill health which hampered him as they were due to his being offered a position.

The composer's early works bear the unmistakable stamp of high German Romanticism, perhaps nowhere more evident than in his first important composition, Verklärte Nacht, Op. 4 (1899). With works like the Five Orchestral Pieces (1909) and the epochal Pierrot lunaire (1912), Schoenberg embarked upon one of the most influential phases of his career. Critics reviled this "atonal" (Schoenberg preferred "pantonal") music, whose structure does not include traditional tonality. Still, the high drama and novel expressive means of Schoenberg's music also inspired a faithful and active following. Most notable among Schoenberg's disciples were Alban Berg and Anton Webern, both of whom eventually attained stature equal to that of their famous mentor. These three composers -- the principal figures of the so-called Second Viennese School -- were the central force in the development of atonal and 12-tone music in the first half of the 20th century and beyond.

Schoenberg's Suite for Piano (1921-1923) occupies a place of central importance in the composer's catalog as his first completely 12-tone composition. Though the 12-tone technique represents only a single, and by no means predominant, aspect of the composer's style, it remains the single characteristic most closely associated with his music. Schoenberg made repeated, though varied, use of the technique across a spectrum of genres, from chamber works like the String Quartet No. 4 (1936) and the Fantasy for Violin and Piano (1949) to orchestral works like the Violin Concerto (1935-1936) and the Piano Concerto (1942), to choral works like A Survivor from Warsaw (1947).

Schoenberg fled the poisonous political atmosphere of Europe in 1933 and spent the remainder of his life primarily in the United States, becoming a naturalized citizen in 1941. During this phase of his career, he at times returned to frank tonality, as in the Theme and Variations for band (1943), reaffirming his connection to the great German musical heritage that extended back to Bach. For Schoenberg, the dissolution of tonality was a logical and inevitable step in the evolution of Western music. Despite a steady stream of critical brickbats throughout his career, the composer, whose life inspired one of 20th century's great novels, Thomas Mann's Doctor Faustus, persisted in his aims, insisting that his music was the result of an overwhelming creative impulse. Though debate over the man and his music rages on, Schoenberg is today acknowledged as one of the most significant figures in music history. The composer, a well-known triskaidekaphobe, died in Los Angeles, California on July 13, 1951. ~ Rovi Staff

The Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra (in Swedish, Sveriges Radios Symfoniorkester) is based in Stockholm and associated with Sveriges Radio or the Swedish Radio network. The group has incubated the careers of several major 20th and 21st century conductors, most of them not Swedish. In addition to its broadcast responsibilities, the Swedish Radio Symphony has performed at major Swedish venues and at such major events abroad as the BBC Proms. The orchestra has a substantial recording catalog, including albums on such major labels as Deutsche Grammophon and Sony Classical; on the latter, the orchestra issued an album of works by Anders Hillborg in 2024.

The Swedish Radio Symphony had several predecessors, including the Radioorkestern ("Radio Orchestra") and the Underhållningsorkestern ("Entertainment Orchestra"). The former took its present shape and name in 1948 under the leadership of conductor Sten Frykberg, who introduced matinee radio programs in which he introduced the music to listeners himself. The two orchestras were merged in 1965 under the new name of Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Conductor Sergiu Celibidache took up the baton that year, and since then, the orchestra has been a reliable incubator of international star talent, including Herbert Blomstedt (1977-1982), Esa-Pekka Salonen (1984-1995), Evgeny Svetlanov (1997-1999), Manfred Honeck (2000-2006), and Daniel Harding (since 2007). Under Salonen, the orchestra made one of its first digital recordings, featuring Carl Nielsen's Symphony No. 4 ("The Inextinguishable") for the CBS label in 1986.

In addition to its regular radio broadcasts, the Swedish Radio Symphony has performed at international festivals and concert halls, presenting its own Baltic Sea Festival but also appearing at the BBC Proms, the Turku Music Festival, and the Easter Festival in Aix-en-Provence, France. In Stockholm, it performs at the 1,300-seat Berwaldhallen. The orchestra's recordings, some of them appearing on Sony Classical, Harmonia Mundi, and BIS, have won major awards from Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, and other publications. In 2017, the orchestra, under Harding, backed baritone Matthias Goerne on his anthology release, The Wagner Project. That year, the Swedish Radio Symphony toured with violinist Joshua Bell, making stops at La Scala in Milan as well as in Vienna, Salzburg, and Frankfurt. The orchestra's recording catalog, oriented toward but by no means exclusively featuring Scandinavian music, has continued to grow; the year 2024 saw the release of a pair of albums, the first in a series of Beethoven piano concertos with pianist Jonathan Biss, and a recording of music by Anders Hillborg, the latter on the Sony Classical label and conducted by Salonen. By that time, the orchestra had made some 50 recordings. ~ James Manheim

Finland's Jean Sibelius is perhaps the most important composer associated with nationalism in music and one of the most influential in the development of the symphony and symphonic poem.

Sibelius was born in southern Finland, the second of three children. His physician father left the family bankrupt, owing to his financial extravagance, a trait that, along with heavy drinking, he would pass on to Jean. Jean showed talent on the violin and at age nine composed his first work for it, Rain Drops. In 1885 Sibelius entered the University of Helsinki to study law, but after only a year found himself drawn back to music. He took up composition studies with Martin Wegelius and violin with Mitrofan Wasiliev, then Hermann Csillag. During this time he also became a close friend of Busoni. Though Sibelius auditioned for the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, he would come to realize he was not suited to a career as a violinist.

In 1889 Sibelius traveled to Berlin to study counterpoint with Albert Becker, where he also was exposed to new music, particularly that of Richard Strauss. In Vienna he studied with Karl Goldmark and then Robert Fuchs, the latter said to be his most effective teacher. Now Sibelius began pondering the composition of the Kullervo symphonic poem, based on the Kalevala legends. Sibelius returned to Finland, taught music, and in June 1892, married Aino Järnefelt, daughter of General Alexander Järnefelt, head of one of the most influential families in Finland. The premiere of Kullervo in April 1893 created a veritable sensation, Sibelius thereafter being looked upon as the foremost Finnish composer. The Lemminkäinen suite, begun in 1895 and premiered on April 13, 1896, has come to be regarded as the most important music by Sibelius up to that time.

In 1897 the Finnish Senate voted to pay Sibelius a short-term pension, which some years later became a lifetime conferral. The honor was in lieu of his loss of an important professorship in composition at the music school, the position going to Robert Kajanus. The year 1899 saw the premiere of Sibelius' First Symphony, which was a tremendous success, to be sure, but not quite of the magnitude of that of Finlandia (1899; rev. 1900).

In the next decade Sibelius would become an international figure in the concert world. Kajanus introduced several of the composer's works abroad; Sibelius himself was invited to Heidelberg and Berlin to conduct his music. In March 1901, the Second Symphony was received as a statement of independence for Finland, although Sibelius always discouraged attaching programmatic ideas to his music. His only concerto, for violin, came in 1903. The next year Sibelius built a villa outside of Helsinki, named "Ainola" after his wife, where he would live for his remaining 53 years. After a 1908 operation to remove a throat tumor, Sibelius was implored to abstain from alcohol and tobacco, a sanction he followed until 1915. It is generally believed that the darkening of mood in his music during these years owes something to the health crisis.

Sibelius made frequent trips to England, having visited first in 1905 at the urging of Granville Bantock. In 1914 he traveled to Norfolk, CT, where he conducted his newest work The Oceanides. Sibelius spent the war years in Finland working on his Fifth Symphony. Sibelius traveled to England for the last time in 1921. Three years later he completed his Seventh Symphony, and his last work was the incidental music for The Tempest (1925). For his last 30 years Sibelius lived a mostly quiet life, working only on revisions and being generally regarded as the greatest living composer of symphonies. In 1955 his 90th birthday was widely celebrated throughout the world with many performances of his music. Sibelius died of a cerebral hemorrhage in 1957. ~ Robert Cummings

Esa-Pekka Salonen emerged as one of the most exciting major conductors of the late 20th century and has continued his illustrious career into the 21st. While best known for his conducting, Salonen views composition as his main career. He is the music director of the San Francisco Symphony and conductor laureate of the Philharmonia and Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestras.

Salonen was born June 30, 1958, in Helsinki, Finland. He entered the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki in 1973, studying horn with Holgar Fransman. Having graduated in 1977, Salonen remained to study composition with Einojuhani Rautavaara and conducting with Jorma Panula. He later continued his composition studies with Franco Donatoni and Niccolò Castiglioni and also attended the summer course at Darmstadt. Salonen's first large-scale orchestral work was the Concerto for alto saxophone & orchestra "...Auf den esten Blick und ohne zu wissen" (1980-1981), based on Kafka's novel The Trial. His second orchestral work, Giro, dates from 1981. The following year, he composed Floof (revised in 1990), a bright work for soprano and ensemble based on texts by science fiction writer Stanislaw Lem, and he started appearing as a horn soloist and guest conductor.

Salonen's conducting career took off in 1983, following his sensational London debut with the Philharmonia Orchestra. He made his American debut conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in 1984. Following these successful debuts, he received a record contract with CBS Masterworks (now Sony Classical), as well as the position of principal guest conductor of the Philharmonia (1985-1994). One of his early projects with CBS was a recording of Messiaen's Turangalîla and Lutoslawski's Symphony No. 3, the latter a world-premiere recording that won a Gramophone Award for Best Contemporary Record in 1985. He won a second award in 1989 for a recording of Sibelius and Nielsen violin concertos, featuring Cho-Liang Lin. Salonen won further awards with the complete Stravinsky works for piano and orchestra with Paul Crossley. As a result of his highly successful performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in 1989, he was invited to become the orchestra's music director. He assumed that post in 1992, becoming, at that time, the orchestra's youngest music director (since supplanted by Gustavo Dudamel) and a successor to such luminaries as Zubin Mehta and Carlo Maria Giulini.

During the '80s, Salonen composed tape music, as well as music with electronics and instruments combined. Works written during this period include Baalal, a radiophonic piece, and Yta (Surface), a series of experimental compositions. He won the UNESCO Rostrum Prize in 1992 for Floof. His 1996 orchestral piece, LA Variations, received its triumphant premiere by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1997. The following year, he wrote Gambit, an orchestral work dedicated to Magnus Lindberg. In 1999, Salonen completed Five Images after Sappho, a song cycle for soprano and small ensemble. Other significant works include Wing on Wing for orchestra and two sopranos (2004), a Piano Concerto (2007) written for Yefim Bronfman, and a Cello Concerto (2017), which was premiered by Yo-Yo Ma and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Salonen's music employs up-to-date compositional techniques within a central tonality.

In 2003, he co-founded the Baltic Sea Festival, serving as music director from its founding until 2018. He led the Los Angeles Philharmonic on major tours and made a series of highly acclaimed recordings before stepping down from his position in 2009. In 2006, Salonen was named principal conductor and, in 2008, the artistic director of the Philharmonia. He remained in both posts with the Philharmonia until 2021; he now holds the post of conductor laureate with both the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Philharmonia. In 2020, Salonen became the music director of the San Francisco Symphony.

Salonen is known for his 20th century music performances, though he is also praised for his interpretations of Haydn, Mahler, and Beethoven. In addition to established modern composers such as Bartók, Messiaen, and Stravinsky, he also frequently performs more recent masters such as Lutoslawski, Ligeti, and Corigliano, whose concerto from the film The Red Violin he recorded with violinist Joshua Bell. Salonen is a teacher of conducting at the Colburn School in Los Angeles. In 2022, he wrote a Concerto for organ and orchestra on commission from several major organizations, took up the composer in residence position with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, and led the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra on a recording of music by Jesper Nordin with clarinetist Martin Fröst. ~ Joseph Stevenson & Keith Finke