The San Francisco Symphony is visiting London, and Geoffrey Norris says thaat the orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas is vibrant in the way that the City of Birmingham Orchestra was under Simon Rattle. Says Tilson Thomas: “What I felt was important was to give the audience a wider view of what contemporary music could be. I introduced contemporary music that was much more tonal, established some of the minimalist composers and figures from neo-classicism and neo-romanticism, and, now that we’re turning to Ligeti, Boulez, Murail, Scelsi and Berio, people are excited, amused, outraged by what they are hearing, but they have something to talk about.”