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Berg's Violin Concerto is atonal--yes, it's the "A" word, but you shouldn't let that keep you from getting to know this modern masterpiece; it's actually very listener-friendly. The music tells a story. The first movement is a character sketch of the young, flirtatious Manon Gropius, daughter of Alma Mahler and architect Walter Gropius. She died tragically of meningitis, and the second movement depicts the horrifying onset of her illness, her death, and her transfiguring apotheosis. Dedicated "to the memory of an angel", it's one of the most heartfelt and moving tributes imaginable. Stravinsky's much more abstract Violin Concerto is about being a violin concerto. Both works, modern classics, are exceptionally well played and recorded by Itzhak Perlman and Seiji Ozawa. Regarding Berg, this was a landmark recording of Perlman's both in his career as a performer and in the history of the work itself. For Perlman, generally perceived as a heart-on-sleeve traditionalist of the "old school", this venture into musical modernism confounded his detractors while at the same time introducing many new listeners to a work that, though difficult, has since come to be regarded as one of the touchstones of the Romantic concerto repertoire. Stravinsky's concerto is less controversial though no less well-played. In sum, these performances are landmarks in the Perlman discography. --David Hurwitz