Karl Amadeus Hartmann wrote his first symphony in 1935/36. At that time he was still an unknown musician whose works stood no chance of being performed and who could not hope to find encouragement in his native Germany. He had to wait more than ten years for its first performance, which finally took place in Frankfurt in the spring of 1948 under the direction of Winfried Zillig. I was 21 at the time, and the work left an extraordinarily deep impression on me, an impression that marked the beginn...