Occasionally the listener experiences that rare - coincidence of the mood and
the moment and the music which makes for perfect enjoyment. Such enjoyment I have recently experi- enced twice in a single week. One occasion was the Sunday afternoon performance of the first two parts of Haydn's The Seasons. Opportunities of hearing this lovely -.cantata are all too rare. Dr. Boult gave a fine performance and rarely have I heard such clear diction over the wireless as Mr. Keith Faulkner gave to the excellent, Cowper-like trans- lation of the text. The other occasion was totally unpre- meditated on my part. Wanting music and finding none to my liking in our own programmes, I tuned in to Stuttgart, where Brailowsky was playing the Tchaikovsky piano concerto and -.Moussorgsky's " Five Pictures from an Exhibition." If I have heard more authoritative playing I do not remember it. It is such pleasures as these that induce a gratitude outweighing any amount of criticism.
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