"I wanted to write a piece that she could play for an audience of classical-music lovers who perhaps knew nothing at all of what was happening in Latin America," he said.

But it will also appeal to classical-music lovers.

For many classical-music lovers such a list bespeaks a golden age of orchestral recording.

The same shift in sensibility is registering among classical-music lovers, particularly opera fanatics.

As a classical-music lover who grew up in an age of rock concerts, I've always found the formality of the concert hall disconcerting.

FOR classical-music lovers in New York, Berlin's orchestra is the Berlin Philharmonic.

There are signs of vitality that should hearten classical-music lovers.

They can still be dismissed by classical-music lovers, secure in their pleasures and their pretensions to exclusive occupancy of the high-art pantheon.

All classical-music lovers know some of the summits, and Mr. Lockwood elucidates both the greatness and the appeal of those creations.

Financially hard-pressed classical-music lovers can't beat the Free for All at Town Hall series, which, as its title proclaims, is free.