Contents

When I heard the tremendously grand and even dramatic way Klemperer conducts the symphony's opening bars I did wonder if this approach wasn't going to be too unaffectionate and unsmiling for Schumann. I need not have worried. Already by the latter part of the introduction the playing is tender,...

Robert Still is one of our less well-known composers; I hope it does not sound too cynical to suggest that this may be because he writes good music. His personal history is that of many potential composers of his generation: a pre-war studentship (Eton, Oxford, RCM), a bit of initial feeling his...

Just why this enchanting work is not in the repertory of every orchestra in the world is a mystery. Maybe Tchaikovsky's own diffidence about his symphonies and particularly about his early ones has made others accept a low estimate too readily, but performances like this and Maazel's fine one...