It was Yehudi Menuhin who said of Enescu that one of the Rumanian's most important qualities as a composer was his humanity. The same could be said of the late Vagn Holmboe: one found that the music was like the man – warm, humane, exceptionally well-balanced, both aurally and in expression. One could not imagine hysterical utterances from either, even when the music is clearly expressing outrage – as in Holmboe's Fifth Symphony. Detlev Glanert, one of the most personable composers I have met, makes a bike impression. He bears little traceof any artistic Ego, although he is very aware of his destiny as a composer. His conversation is easy-going and affable, changing to quiet earnestness when discussing graver matters. These qualities shine through in his music, which covers a wide variety of expressive mood and content, from the straightforwardly abstract (as in the second Chamber Sonata, Gestalt, op.32, of 1995), through the surreal contrasts of Marmormeer (‘Sea of marble’, one of the Four Fantasias for piano, op. 15,1987–8) which originated as a concept in a dream of the composer's, to the main climax of the First Symphony, op.6 (1985) – a graphic, vividly-scored depiction of the terror felt as one's own door is being battered down (see Ex.1).