Lebrecht does have some serious points to make in this article (commercialism, Salzberg overkill etc) but buries them (gets attention for them??) by some of the most bizarre comments I have read by a 'serious' cultural commentator some a long while. A shame. BTW, I find the Leningrad symphony bombastic, ugly music and cannot believe he holds it up as finer alternative to, say, the Jupiter symphony or Don Giovanni. David Harbin Nottingham, UK