Robert Simpson (1921-97)
Stephen Johnson presents a tribute to the multifaceted Robert Simpson - distinguished composer, trenchant and provocative writer and broadcaster on music, and BBC music producer, who died at the end of last year. The programme includes Simpson's String Quartet No 3 played by the Aeolian Quartet, and a recording from 1973 of the first performance of his Symphony No 5 by the London Symphony Orchestra, conductor Andrew Davis. The Delme
Quartet play some of Simpson's transcriptions for string quartet from Bach's The Art of Fugue, and Simpson talks about music - his own and that of other composers. Producer Peter Tanner