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LETTER of the MONTH
Parisian hero
Your splendid feature about Daniel Barenboim (April) reminded me of his time with the Orchestre de Paris, which was in a sorry state when he took over in 1975. He brought them up to scratch, invited Arthur Oldham over to create a Chorus, involved the first desks in participating as soloists, created a series of chamber concerts and set up a junior orchestra headed by Mstislav Rostropovich. He even held a referendum among the audience one day about the starting time of concerts – at the time, 9.30 pm was frequent, so that the public could have a proper dinner but neglecting those from the suburbs who needed trains to get home. We voted for