What a composer writes after his sixtieth year is not expected to break new ground. Indeed even at fifty, and earlier, so enterprising a lover of curiosities as Ravel had become spun into set mannerisms, and from a much earlier age Strauss never wrote anything essentially new. What one does properly look for in an artist who has reached mature mastery—as he must have done long before sixty if he was built that way at all—is not novelty, but consistency. One asks whether such a man has been true to himself or whether he has merely followed a series of fashions and dropped out of them again one by one.

Question. You have written works in many forms and combinations, but you seem to prefer certain mediums to others. For example, you have written a great deal for string orchestra, but comparatively little for full orchestra. Why is that?

After long neglect, Mahler is in the lime-light again. I see that there are more performances of his symphonies than for many years past. The young generation is discovering Mahler; young people are trying to get hold of the scores and records and are attending lectures and discussions in clubs and private gatherings. Musicians and writers, some of whom held that history had passed its verdict on Mahler long ago, are taking up his case again, as little biased as their earlier records will permit. How is it that public opinion concerning this composer, who died more than thirty years ago, is still unsettled? Decades have elapsed without Mahler's music being heard, and the number of musicians in this country who can claim close acquaintance with it is, in fact, very small.

The first of the Boosey & Hawkes concerts was given at Wigmore Hall in October 1941, when the war situation looked gloomy indeed. The programme included songs by de Falla, Szymanowski and Rawsthorne; Debussy's Trio for flute, viola and harp; a Honegger Quartet, and two quite new works: Vaughan Williams' Household Music for string quartet and Bernard Stevens' Theme and Variations for piano. Altogether a rather doubtful venture, one might well have thought. Yet, as it transpired, the artists appeared pleased to be playing something new, the audience was large and manifestly enthusiastic, and the event, widely reported, was described in The Times as “the most interesting programme presented in London since the outbreak of war.” There could be little doubt, then, that the organizing committee had after all gauged the needs of an important section of the London musical public, and that they would be justified in proceeding with other concerts based on the same policy.