The Berlin Phillarmonic Orchestra, conducted by Furtwängler, gave one or two highly successful concerts in London about this time, and the public appeared to be inordinately captivated. I was not in London at the time, being in Berlin myself preparing for a viola recital. While there I was keen to hear them and took the opportunity of going to one of their concerts on their return to Berlin, looking forward to great things after all I had heard about their performances at home. I was so disappointed that I did not sit the programme out. No doubt they were well disciplined; but it was the coldest playing I had ever heard in my life, particularly on the part of the strings. And the brass was blatant. Not that I have ever considered our own string players to be as warm in their playing as they might be. I put their deficiency down to the traditional suppression of emotional expression which in the course of generations has become part of the English character. But hang it all! How is the sound of a contraption of wood and gut, etc. to be made worth listening to, if one does not bring to bear every ounce of vitality and emotional sensibility of which one is capable? All the same, our orchestral string players were infinitely more expressive than the Berliners of that time. << less