In old age, certain composers reach a state of terminal grace, in which even throwaway ideas give off a glow of inevitability, like wisps of cloud illumined at dusk.
"It's true," said Kasper Holten, the Director of Opera at ROH. "But we have to acknowledge the fact that there is a big demand out there for certain composers".
A little later in the twentieth century, certain composers who had come of age around 1900 became symbols, in a wider sense, of a rapidly fading pre-First World War world.
A typical memo, to remind herself to listen again to certain composers, comes out like this: "To rehear: [Henry ] Purcell [Jean-Philippe] Rameau, [Ludwig van] Beethoven's Fifth, 'La Mer,' [Frédéric] Chopin, late [Franz ] Liszt [Franz ] Schuberts Eighth".
But also his body of works exhibits a unique perspective on the repertoire and his distinct tastes for certain composers.
There are certain composers on whose work Solti has stamped his mark with a distinction that has never been equalled, nor probably ever will be, so that his conduit of their intentions has become integral to the experience of listening to them: Wagner, Strauss and Mozart arguably – Mahler unquestionably.
And certain composers are best suited to Mr. Davis's passions, among them Berlioz, Sibelius and Stravinsky.
Why certain composers who were popular in their day become marginalized over time is often inexplicable.
Inevitably we came to the question of how it gets decided that certain music, certain composers are the best.
For those who have followed Keys to the Future since its start in 2005, certain composers, and even individual pieces, keep popping up.
Thus his admiration for certain composers of his time stemmed both from the happiness and from the enlightenment that he found in examining their music.
