Music & Arts have just released roughly half of them as played by the Schneider Quartet (1950s). Then there’s the Aeolian, Angeles and Kodály Quartets, the first two being especially notable. Any thoughts?

Me? Klemperer’s Petrushka (far too cumbersome). Toscanini’s Eugene Onegin waltz (bullied out of all recognition). Glenn Gould’s early Mozart Sonatas (classical Keystone Cops). Karajan’s stereo Philharmonia Sibelius 5 (far too smooth). How about you?

Some would argue that ‘vintage’ sound is a turn-off, others that the fire of great music-making burns through it, makes the passage of years seem non-existant (I do!). If you’re listening to Schnabel, Toscanini, Furtwängler, Mengelberg, Ponselle, Callas, Melchior, Flagstad, Friedman, Horowitz, etc, are you honestly aware that the technology that’s bringing them to you isn’t ‘state-of-the art’? Go on, disappoint me!

Think of Mozart’s last symphonies, Schubert’s last songs and quartets and Tchaikovsky’s Pathétique …

… and instructed you to take it to the publishers but phone before arriving, what would you have done if he said ‘don’t deliver it … destroy it’? Would you have honoured Sibelius’s wishes or the traded them for the demands of musical posterity?

Outdoor adventurers in music … Sibelius, furtive spirit of the night (Wood Nymph, En Saga, Tapiola, Sixth Symphony), master of transitional seasons (Fifth Symphony); Nielsen, brave sun king with arms thrown wide open (Helios, Third Symphony), mercurial wit (Journey to the Pharaoh Isles, Sixth Symphony), the two coming together for acts of uncompromised heroism (Sibelius 7, Nielsen 5). Do you hear these parallels? Can you name others? Or name places to go when you’ve exhausted the magnificent legacies of both composers?

recorded music, that is … maybe Baroque in the morning, symphonic around midday, opera for late afternoon, chamber music, choral muic or piano works at evening. I know people who plan their listening roughly along those lines. Do you?

I was interested to learn from the Daily Mail that Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture and Digital Economy never listens to Radio 3 yet is happy to endorse the accessibility of its nearest musical rival. OK, let’s admit that you may or may not like chat in the early morning, phone-ins, news bulletins or trails … one man’s meat, etc. But what cannot be denied is the herd of elephants in this particular room, the scores of great works played on a weekly basis (not least on Composer of the Week), live concerts, the rarities, the informed critiques (oboist Sarah Devonald trawling through countless versions of Strauss’s lovely Oboe Concerto last Saturday), the sensitivity to performance values, the dramas and poetry programmes – and damn it, the high level of culture. Yes, I am a Radio 3 presenter and it’s my job to elicit views rather express them (on this particular topic), but fair is fair – it is after all my blog!. There’s nothing else in the world quite like R3 and too many critics ride roughshod over its many virtues … no worse than that, don’t even mention them. Please discuss.

For starters … Interpretations on Record…

Now I’d like to ask – and this could throw up some interesting ideas – about the recordings most in need of CD reissue that have never made it to silver disc before. It might be rare repertoire or under-appreciated artists. Also, are you happy with ‘downloads only’ (the audio equivalent of ebooks) or do you still prefer the idea of collectable discs?