I've never before said a final goodbye to a piece of music, but just before Christmas I packed up two enormous suitcases of quartet music and took it to my basement storage bin. It was a strange sensation, somewhat ghoulish, like burying one's self alive.

The First Symphony is probably one of the most often performed works of Mahler since it doesn't take two hours or involve 1000 musicians. But Mariss Jansons and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. There are two words I always say about them: "Oh wow."

Pavel Vinnitsky is a man on a mission. His goal is to revive the Klemzer tradition, seek out composers to write original music based on Jewish themes, and combine the presentation of this music with a standard classical repertoire.