Of the Hallé concerts at Manchester at which I played, one will always be memorable to me because of a performance of Berlioz’s Harold in Italy conducted by Sir Hamilton Harty. I have often played this grand work, but Harty’s interpretation excelled that of all the conductors I have known. In two places in particular the effects he achieved were incomparable. In the lovely Evening Prayer of the Pilgrims, with the answering intoning of the priests, Harty’s expression was so vivid that one actually lived in the picture. Then in the final ‘Orgy’ those outstanding bars for trombones and tuba, with clarinets and bassoons, heralded by the violins’ fortissimo shriek – Harty rendered the grandeur of these phrases of immense sound with an extraordinarily subtle rubato. What he produced out of these twenty-two bars was electrifying. << less