John Adams: Harmonielehre (Edo de Waart, San Francisco Symphony, 1985)

Harmonielehre united minimalist repetition with monumental late-Romantic orchestral scale. Born from a dream of an oil tanker blasting into the sky like a rocket, the first movement opens with thirty-nine pounding E-minor chords. Adams uses repeating minimalist propulsion not to mesmerise, but to propel towering orchestral climaxes reminiscent of Sibelius and Mahler.