I've just bought a CD of overtures by JPE Hartmann. It contains a work called The Golden Horns which uses a speaker. It's a form I find very annoying. There are several works by favourite composers that I've tried and had to pass on for this reason, eg Vaughan Williams's Oxford Elegy, Bliss's Morning Heroes, Schumann's Manfred. I can just cope with the speaker in Beethoven's Egmont because there's not much of him. The extreme example of this form seems to be Richard Strauss's Enoch Arden before which even seasoned reviewers have admitted having cowered in terminal boredom. I haven't heard it and have no desire to do so. Anyone to defend? Richard Pennycuick [log in to unmask]