40 Years of Stereophile: The 40 Essential Albums CLASSICAL CLASSICAL. WAGNER: Der Ring des Nibelungen Sir Georg Solti, Vienna Philharmonic, et al Decca/London (1958, 1962, 1964, 1965) The fact that Wagner's Ring is undeniably the finest music-drama ever written did not encourage record labels to record it with the invention of the LP—it was simply too vast and expensive an undertaking. But with stereo and advances in technology, Decca and producer ...