Having "tracked down" Oliver Knussen (whose "hideaway" turned out to be no more obscure than the world-famous Snape), Service began by outdoing even Sean Rafferty in sycophancy, declaring Knussen to be the greatest composer of all time. This is no doubt several degrees less preposterous than the result of the 1999 poll that found Robbie Williams to be the greatest musician of the last 1000 years, but the effect was still to put the listener's scepticism into stand-by mode. And indeed, the excerpts from Knussen's works that punctuated the conversation were unremarkable, Birtwhistle type horror-film soundtrack music. At the heart of the conversation, though, was Knussen's candid admission that he felt himself to be in a no-man's land between minimalist composers, whose concerts draw capacity crowds, and "toughies" like Elliott Carter, supported out of a hard core of 300-400 people. Is there a name for the artistic experience that lies between enjoyment and piety? And equally important, is there a name that a composer would be happy to embrace?

I do think he's been extremely modest during his tenure at London Sinfonietta, where he has programmed incredibly little of his own work.  I think few others in such a position would have been so nobly self-effacing.

How much of it is there that he could have programmed?

although I don't think much of Knussen's own music I admire him immensely as a conductor,both for the sheer quality of his performances and for his dedication to conducting contemporary music.Very few conductors do this nowadays,though there used to be quite a tradition:Klemperer,Wood,Boult,Groves,Pritchard,del Mar. . .

'knussen has been my favourite composer for years'

goodness me. I'm amazed you prefer his music to the great masters.Or did you mean living composers?

I can't say I have  a favourite compooser,though there are several whose music means an immense amount to me personally.

I think it would have been a better idea for him to have stuck to his own music rather than exerting the narrowing influence he did over contemporary music in the UK during the 1980s, whose effects we're still seeing now.

At the beginning of that decade, for example, the London Sinfonietta still regularly performed a wide range of composers including names which were then relatively obscure and outside the mainstream such as James Dillon and Chris Dench. Not many years later it seemed that this organisation and the contemporary music establishment in general in London were attempting to create a "school" around Knussen and those composers comparable in middle-of-the-road style to him, a process intensified by Knussen's own activities as conductor and programmer. I'm not trying to make a conspiracy theory out of this, just to say that Knussen's tastes as a conductor have been far more influential in setting the agenda for the LS and other institutions than is consistent with a diverse and vital musical culture. When I lived in the Netherlands I saw a similar thing happen on a smaller scale as a result of his regular work with the ASKO Ensemble of Amsterdam, which began with a new and "experimental" view of what such a group could and should do, and evolved during the period of Knussen's regular work with them (although maybe this was pure coincidence...) into just another Sinfonietta-type ensemble.

Whenever a great deal of power and influence is vested in a single or a few individuals' hands, there are always bound to be problems, people unwarrantedly excluded, and so on. This seems to be the case in Britain, France and Holland at the very least. Some sort of greater decentralisation of authority, maybe even some sort of musical monopolies commission, is surely in order? When one person can deeply influence the two most prominent new music ensembles and a major festival, there is something wrong.

My ex once did a comparative survey of new music ensembles around Europe, looking at their funding, repertoire (and its internationalism or otherwise), and various other things. One of the conclusions was that those ensembles essentially run by the players have the most diverse range of repertoire.