"On 10 November 1920, England's senior and most respected musician, Sir Edward Elgar, OM, mounted the rostrum in Birmingham's Town Hall to conduct the first symphony concert of the City of Birmingham Orchestra - a challenging programme of his own recent compositions." "On 10 November 1995, a younger but no less respected musician, Sir Simon Rattle, CBE, mounts the rostrum in Birmingham's superb Symphony Hall to conduct the CBSO and the City of Birmingham Symphony Chorus - in an equally challenging programme which includes the premieres of specially commissioned works by Oliver Knussen and John Adams, as well as Beethoven's Choral Symphony. The seventy-five years between these two events form the subject of this handsomely illustrated history of the CBSO, now in the first league of international orchestras."--Jacket.