I forget what took me to Leeds in October 1976, but I expect it had something to do with the promotion of Hungarian music. It may have been some sort of a festival, for Aaron Copland was also there, to hear a performance of his Nonet for three violins, three violas, and three cellos (1960). It goes without saying I had my tape recorder with me. I scribbled the date of our interview on the cassette: October 18. Four days later, I used the other track to record an interview with Witold Lutosławski in Amsterdam (also included in Snippets).

Copland and I had first met in Budapest in 1969. Two years later, I was asked by Editio Musica Budapest to translate his book The New Music into Hungarian. Copland was invited in time for its publication; he also conducted a concert which included Roy Harris's Third Symphony and his own Clarinet Concerto. That was in 1973; in the same year, we also met in New York.

In 1976, then, it was a question of resuming our conversations left off three years before; in the meantime, we had exchanged quite a few letters.

My questions did not immediately strike a chord, even though I had expected Aaron to launch with relish into the subject of the authenticity of interpretation. The performance in Leeds of his Nonet came in handy from that point of view.