He is described as being a foul-mouthed, wisecracking, no-nonsense New York cop with an itchy trigger finger and a never-say-die maverick spirit.

Nevertheless it is sound and offers the maverick spirit a great deal of foreign territory to explore.

"He embodies that sort of visionary, maverick spirit and that inventor mythology," Mr. Fjellestad said at the time.

As it was, we had a brilliantly guided museum tour, but we heard little evidence, Mr. Reich apart, that any real maverick spirit survives in classical music today.

"He embodies that sort of visionary, maverick spirit and that inventor mythology."

Someone, in short, who could tame his maverick spirit.

It is that maverick spirit that makes Mr. Welser-Most special.

Long may its maverick spirit flourish.

But facility, allied with evident intelligence (educated at the University of Chicago, he reckoned once to be a lawyer), could be read as a maverick spirit, an outsider's aloofness.

His maverick, contradictory spirit is reflected in the books made in his name, with their balance of sensuality and moral austerity, crudeness and tenderness, naturalism and mysticism.