‘From now on, I will accept only Karel Goeyvaerts as my teacher in composition’ exclaimed the young Karlheinz Stockhausen during the famous New Music Summer Courses at Darmstadt in 1951. Goeyvaerts had just explained the very principles of serial organization for which Stockhausen had been searching for some time. In the following years Goeyvaerts 1923–1993) developed those basic principles into variety of composition techniques, and into a stylistic diversity not often encountered in serious music. After having applied serialism to tapegenerated music in the early 1950s and to experimental and aleatoric procedures in the 1960s, Goeyvaerts developed the repetitive element, already couched in some of his serial works, during the 70s and 80s. In his last period, the Belgian composer did not eschew a return to tonality, without however foresaking the core of serial thinking of which he had been the founding father. For many of these tendencies Goeyvaerts was the forerunner; to others he added valuable contributions. Therefore, his artistic legacy should be evaluated against the work of other European avantgarde composers such as Stockhausen or Boulez, or put into perspective by comparing it with the work of his American colleagues such as Babbitt, Carter, Riley or Glass.

The following text is a transcript of the last interview given by the Austrian-born British musician and writer Hans Keller (1919–1985), the 10th anniversary of whose death fell on 6 November. The interview – which gives a remarkably wellrounded summary of Keller's life and activities – was given in the Summer of 1985 in support of Anton Weinberg's Channel 4 documentary ‘The Keller Instinct’ (first shown 23/2/86, repeated 28/6/88). While the moving sight of a frail and obviously very ill (but still chain-smoking!) Keller will no doubt be remembered by many viewers, the programme in fact used only a small proportion of what was recorded; most of what follows, therefore, is being made available for the first time. In any event, the programme itself seems not to have been preserved, making future re-broadcast unlikely. The interlocutor is Anton Weinberg himself; the tape has been transcribed and edited by Mark Doran.

Ferruccio Busoni, who saw out the First World War from the neutral haven of Switzerland, maintained that the best Swiss symphony was Rossini's William Tell overture. Not that the country was completely lacking in resident composers of symphonic music during the Classical and Romantic eras. There was, for example, Gaspard Fritz (d.1783), whom Dr Bumey met in Geneva. There was Xaver Schnyder von Wartensee (d.1868), whose works include an amiable ‘Military’ Symphony. But the dominant force in the 19th century was the composer, publisher and pedagogue Hans Georg Nägeli, whose primary achievement was to develop a choral tradition. Instrumental music in Switzerland depended largely on imports. Joachim Raff, who came from the Lake Zurich region, did not begin to find his feet as a symphonist until he settled in Germany. The vocal bias persisted into the 20th century: thus Othmar Schoeck could say that writing a violin sonata was something of a ‘crime’ for him.

• Sallinen's ‘The Palace’ in Savonlinna Ronald Weitzman

• Lucerne Festival Peter Palmer

• Ensemble ExposZé etc Ian Pace

• Aspects of French patronage Robin Freeman

• John Casken's Violin Concerto Malcolm Miller

• Arditti Quartet James Erber

• ‘Panic’ at the Proms Jonathan Cross

• Nicolas Medtner Martin Anderson

• The Music of Galina Ustvolskaya Ronald Weitzman

• Recent Birtwistle discs Nicolas Hodges

• Hugh Wood's Quartets Stephen Collisson

• Knussen's Stravinsky on DG Michael Oliver

• Zender's ‘Winterreise’, ‘Moonchild's Dream’ Peter Palmer

• Tippett's Piano Sonatas Philip Thomas

• Turnage on NMC Stephen Collisson

• Quartet music from Italy John Warnaby

• Alan Hovhaness Bret Johnson

• Hermann Suter's ‘Le Laudi’ Peter Palmer

• Music from Iceland Guy Rickards

• Et cetera Martin Anderson