The tone and provocation of these remarks, in reply to a question about ‘eminent conductors I have known’, are to be traced to a recording of the Brahms First Symphony to which I had just been listening, but which I could not follow, the second beats in the 6/8 movement being so delayed that the time signature might have been 6 ^{½ /}8. I imagined how the conductor would call the distortion emphasis, though it was only weakening exaggeration; and expressive freedom, though the natural rhythmic vitality was corrupted. My mood, therefore, was that of a composer irritated by the impossibility of being played without the editing and the uninteresting comments of his conductors.