Roslavetz and Rebikov were ‘Moscow composers’, but Gnesin was a St Petersburg pupil of Rimsky. I knew him well. I do not think his composer’s gifts were strong or original – at least, everything of his that I heard sounded anonymous – but he was the liveliest and most open-minded spirit of the Rimsky group, except when I consider that the others were Steinberg, Glazunov, Grechaninov and Alexander Tcherepnin, the compliment sounds less generous than I intend it to be. Gnesin’s Sprechgesang was only a passing interest because, unlike Schoenberg’s, it did not grow out of a musical necessity.