Such tragedy, such triumph

The deaths in rapid succession of Mstislav Rostropovich, Beverly Sills and Luciano Pavarotti were the terrible 1-2-3 punch of 2007. The passing of the great German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen this month was a further blow. The CD, given what may turn out to have been a mortal wound with the demise of Tower Records at the end of 2006, hung on but is clearly in its last days. Still, classical music grew stronger, not weaker. Remarkable new talent appeared, and so did new works. Meanwhile, new media continued to race to the rescue of recordings.

Gustavo Dudamel dominated the year. His galvanizing appearance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic the first week in January set the stage for the Easter surprise announcement that the 26-year-old Venezuelan would succeed Esa-Pekka Salonen as music director of the orchestra in 2009. Dudamel’s return to Disney Hall in the fall with the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra produced near hysteria. Next up was New York, where he reputedly got the skeptical town’s tough-as-nails Philharmonic eating out of his hand.

Philip Glass at 70 remained indispensable. He premiered “Book of Longing,” a 90-minute song cycle of Leonard Cohen poems, and “Appomattox,” commissioned by San Francisco Opera. Yet another searching, profound, politically penetrating major work -- his previous opera, “Waiting for the Barbarians” -- received its American premiere in Austin, Texas, this year as well.

The opera repertory, in fact, grew lavishly in 2007. Further impressive additions included Ricky Ian Gordon’s “The Grapes of Wrath” in St. Paul, Minn.; Anthony Davis’ “Wakonda’s Dream” in Omaha; Lou Harrison’s revised “Young Caesar” in San Francisco; Unsuk Chin’s “Alice” in Munich, Germany; and Damon Albarn’s “Monkey: Journey to the West” in Manchester, England.

Dudamel’s L.A. appointment hardly sent Salonen fading into the woodwork. He began the year with the premiere of his outstanding, grandly conceived Piano Concerto, which the New York Philharmonic presented with Yefim Bronfman as soloist. He reprised the “Tristan Project” with the L.A. Philharmonic, and it was more glorious than ever. And he offered a bracing, brilliant cycle of Sibelius’ seven symphonies to begin the 2007-08 L.A. Philharmonic season.

Returning to the Hollywood Bowl for the first time in 22 years, Michael Tilson Thomas brought with him Gore Vidal, who recited the text for Copland’s “Lincoln Portrait” with the power of a prophet. A nod as well to the San Francisco Symphony’s music director for “The MTT Files,” some of the best classical music radio ever.

Someone, somewhere, may have given a more nuanced, better-sung, more illuminating opera performance than Thomas Hampson did as the title character in Verdi’s “Macbeth” this month for San Francisco Opera. But that would be hard to believe.

This year marked the dawn of a new Dawn. Dawn Upshaw came back from treatment for breast cancer sounding even more devoted to every note she sang than she had before. And three cheers to the MacArthur Foundation for making the soprano the first classical singer to receive a “genius” grant.

The Master Chorale premiered two works for the history books. It resurrected Christopher Rouse’s loud-enough-to-raise-the-dead Requiem and commissioned the striking opening scene of Louis Andriessen’s forthcoming opera, “La Commedia.”

Book of the year: Alex Ross’ personal, must-read take on 20th century music, “The Rest Is Noise,” which has gotten a surprisingly large readership listening and arguing -- and thrilled about a century of great music.

CD of the year: Stockhausen’s “Stimmung” performed by Paul Hillier’s Theatre of Voices. May this intense, otherworldly music penetrate the cultural psyche the way Gorecki’s Third Symphony did a generation ago.

The worst

If people actually paid attention to “Classical Destinations,” an expensive multicity television travelogue, book and CD soundtrack, the sappy enterprise could set the cause of classical music back by decades. Fortunately, there is little evidence anyone did.

Los Angeles Opera’s production of the wicked Brecht-Weill masterpiece “Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny” was, to the opera world’s great surprise, tamed to the point of triviality by a supposed theatrical provocateur, John Doyle.

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mark.swed@latimes.com