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Many thanks for these fascinating scores!

The person who came closest to summing up, for me, the sense that while we really enjoyed playing the quintet, it just wasn't, say, the Schumann, was the violinist, who remarked "He just doesn't have a dark side, does he?"

The Schumann contains flashes of an almost heartbreaking quality in the midst of its rejoicing, while the Fibich is a long and passionate love song from one end to the other.

Great horn part, though.

I once came across a score of this work in a library. However, when I returned the score had vanished from both the shelves the library catalogue.

Has anyone come across it? I played through part of it, and it seemed worth a go. I'd love to get hold of a score.

I would add my vote for the piano quintet. The original version, with clarinet and horn paired with violin and cello is far more engaging aurally than the string quintet version. It's a wonderful work to play, too, for those of you who play chamber music.

While listening to the Moods, Impressions and Reminiscences is probably daunting, playing them is fascinating. It's like reading a person's diary. Gradually, the themes, moods and cross-references begin to build up into a genuine sense of person. They are lovely pieces, but clearly not designed to be listened to en masse, which is how, unfortunately, they are recorded.

I have noticed two opposing trends: in the concert hall, the audience for classical music has aged and become more and more middlebrow. Looking back recently over the concertos that Helene Grimaud has performed, you realise that concert promoters have to fill halls with middlebrow listeners who are not prepared to listen to anything they haven't heard before. So there is a shrinking repertoire in public performance.
But there is a great expansion of recordings of repertoire that you are remotely unlikely to hear in concert ever. The only performance of a Stanford symphony I can recall in the last decade in Dublin - his birthplace, for goodness' sake! - was by a good amateur orchestra. But we now have two excellent recordings of the complete symphonies. And although beyond the horizon of this group, the same can be said for renaissance music: concert performances are rarer, but the standard and coverage in recordings is remarkable.
So possibly the question needs to be modified. In the concert hall, more and more composers and repertoire are being relegated to the sidelines as the relentless pressure to sell tickets pushes promoters towards the classical 'pops'. However, the independent recording industry has realised that an audience of a thousand people need not be in one place at one time. They just need to be found – and that's where the internet comes in.