Franz Schmidt is increasingly being recognised as a major composer. His music covers symphonies, quartets, opera and oratorio, and works and organ. In all of these genres he proves himself a master of large-scale symphonic form and one of the most substantial lyric geniuses of all time. Schmidt spent most of his life in Austria (he died in Vienna in 1939) where his importance was universally agreed. Here, Harold Truscott, the outstanding authority on Schmidt in the English-speaking world, examines the orchestral works, taking the reader and listener through each of these mighty scores. Introduced by the `Personal Recollections' of Hans Keller, who knew Schmidt well in pre-World-War-II Vienna, the book also features the first-ever translation into English of Schmidt's Autobiographical Sketch, where the composer tells of his early childhood in Hungary, his teenage years near Vienna and his life as a cellist in the Vienna Philharmonic. HAROLD TRUSCOTT is a composer and writer. He was Principal Lecturer in Music at Huddersfield Polytechnic and has performed widely as a pianist in recital, broadcast and concert work.