Heartbreaking – but also enormously courageous. With the Maestro “nearly blind and increasingly deaf” and his wife facing terminal pancreatic and liver cancer, they decided to end it together and on their terms. Sir Edward Downes was perhaps best known for his work in the opera pit, but his thrilling recordings of Gliere’s Ilya Murometz and powerful, propulsive Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No.2 remain favorite recordings of mine. Every one of his recordings that I’ve heard yields consistently excellent orchestral playing and character.

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