Vaughan Williams is the perfect composer for our turbulent times A new CD captures an exceptional performance of the composer's Sixth Symphony, recorded the night before concert halls went dark in 2020 Flawless and ferocious: conductor Antonio Pappano Credit: Sim Canetty-Clarke Sir Antonio Pappano has, for almost 20 years, been Music Director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. I have lost count of the number of times that his brilliant musicianship has saved an otherwise grim opera production there. He is a superb conductor, and his understanding of Wagner ranks him with Kempe, Keilberth, Solti, Knappertsbusch – and even Barenboim, whose assistant he was at Bayreuth in the 1980s; he is not far off Fürtwängler.