The editor of this volume describes himself as having been "mixed up with music" for the best part of this life. he has been listening to music since he was a schoolboy. He became an assiduous concertgoer when he went up to Cambridge in 1909, and ever since then has found one of the major blessings of life to consist in listening to music-symphonies, operas, chamber music and instrumental and vocal solos of all kinds.