Stephen Sondheim: The Story So Far (Sony Classics, four CDs). Eighty-two songs by the greatest musical-theater composer of the postwar era. All of Sondheim’s shows are represented, and the performances range from original-cast recordings to rare demos sung and played by the composer himself. Sondheim fanatics will already have the bulk of this material, but if you’re just getting to know him, The Story So Far is a good place to start (TT).

Dividing the Estate (Booth, 222 W. 45, closes Jan. 4). Horton Foote’s grimly funny portrait of a houseful of Texans who’ve been sponging off their mother for so long that they’ve forgotten how to earn an honest buck is the best-written, best-acted play in town, not excluding August: Osage County and A Man for All Seasons. It’s the go-to show for theater buffs who long to spend a whole evening on Broadway without having their intelligence insulted. Give yourself a ticket for Christmas (TT).

John Adams, Hallelujah Junction: Composing an American Life (FSG, $26). A hugely important, exceedingly well-written memoir in which the composer of Nixon in China and Doctor Atomic explains with engaging clarity why he broke with modernism to forge a new, more accessible style of classical composition. Even if, like me, you find it impossible to warm up to Adams’ minimalist music, this book will leave you in no doubt of why it has made so deep an impression on a generation of American composers and listeners (TT).

John McCormack, Deutsche Lieder 1914-1936 (Hamburger Archiv für Gesangskunst). When not singing “Mother Machree” and “The Garden Where the Praties Grow,” Ireland’s favorite tenor was a dead-serious recitalist who had a knack for bringing out the ballad-like quality of German art songs. This beautifully remastered imported CD contains all twenty-seven of his surviving recordings of songs by Brahms, Mendelssohn, Raff, Schubert, Schumann, and Wolf. Some are performed in English, others in Irish-tinged German, but all are sung with a combination of straightforwardness and sweet lyricism that I find completely charming. Would that McCormack had recorded twice as many Lieder, but to hear him singing Wolf’s “Herr, was trägt der Boden hier” (his favorite art song) is to be reminded of how lucky we are to live in the age of recorded sound (TT).

John Marin: Ten Masterworks in Watercolor (Meredith Ward, 44 E. 74, up through Dec. 20). Ten important works on paper by the pioneering American modernist whose virtuosity in the watercolor medium remains unrivaled. Some are from Marin’s estate, others from private collections, and most are familiar only to Marin specialists. A rare opportunity to view a great American painter at the peak of his powers (TT).

Frankenthaler at Eighty: Six Decades (Knoedler & Company, 19 E. 70, up through Jan. 10). Nine large-scale canvases and works on paper painted between 1957 and 2002 by America’s foremost abstractionist. A superb miniature retrospective that concisely sums up Helen Frankenthaler’s creative achievement (TT).

Budd Boetticher: The Collector’s Choice (Sony, five discs). At long last, the five Budd Boetticher-Randolph Scott Westerns made between 1957 and 1960 have made it to DVD. (Seven Men From Now, the first film in the series, was released in 2005.) Three of these stark, laconic moral tales, The Tall T, Ride Lonesome, and Comanche Station, rank high on the short list of great postwar Westerns, while Decision at Sundown and Buchanan Rides Alone, though not in the same league, are definitely worth seeing. Also included is A Man Can Do That, Bruce Ricker’s Boetticher documentary. Essential viewing for film buffs (TT).

Dennis Brain: The Horn Player (EMI, four CDs). This specially priced box set contains most of the commercial recordings of the great British horn player whose death in a 1957 car accident deprived the world of one of its most prodigally gifted instrumentalists. Brain’s celebrated studio performances of the concertos of Mozart, Richard Strauss, and Paul Hindemith are all here, together with a generous helping of chamber music, including the exquisitely played versions of Dukas Villanelle and the Schumann Adagio and Allegro that he recorded with Gerald Moore in 1952. If you’ve never heard Brain’s horn playing, prepare yourself to experience a miracle of suavity and grace (TT).