“Charles Mackerras’s career has belatedly been recognised as great, but not because, like some jet-setting conductors, he set out to accumulate all music’s most glittering prizes – his CV is surprisingly short of those defining music directorships at Covent Garden or La Scala, or chief conductor posts in Berlin, Chicago or London. Rather, his 60-year career has been characterised by a combination of musicological awareness, meticulous preparation and highly charged performance.”