Of Strauss's three large-scale autobiographical works, Intermezzo is surely the sincerest and the best. It avoids the grandiosity of Ein Heldenleben and the coyness of parts of the Sinfonia Domestica, and approaches bathos only in the final duet of reconciliation between the composer and his wife. For the rest, the story and music give an unvarnished account of the Strausses' menage, and in particular of one incident, taken from life, when Mrs. Strauss wrongly suspected her husband of infidelity after opening an incriminating letter from a Berlin demi-mondaine that was intended for another conductor with a similar name.

Koanga was the third of Frederick Delius's operas to be completed (in 1897), but the first to be staged (in 1904); it was also the first of his earlier works to achieve the distinction of posthumous publication (in 1935). The long-awaited release of the recent recording, by turning our thoughts anew to this colourful score, provides a suitable occasion to review the earlier history of the work.

Leopold Spinner is one of the outstanding inheritors of the traditions of the Second Viennese school, not only by virtue of his direct relationship (as Webern's pupil), but also because his music builds upon and extends that school's achievements. In my first article (TEMPO 109) I isolated two fundamental characteristics of his style. First, Spinner continually makes use of intervallic asymmetries in the polyphonic combination of motifs and lines which, through their similarities of shape, set up expectations of symmetry. Secondly—and contrary to the practice of Schoenberg and Webern—he frequently exploits the duplications which arise (often in the same register) from the proximity of the same notes in two or more simultaneous set-forms. The close relationship of Spinner's music to Webern's late works—with their avoidance of note-duplications and their predominantly homogeneous and symmetrical textures—allows these Spinnerian characteristics to stand out against an immediately recognizable Webernian background, and thus to acquire their peculiar expressive and dramatic tension.