It is 50 years this summer since a Guardian political correspondent gave up his seat in the parliamentary press gallery writing stories under such headlines as "Mr Heath stands fast on prices", and switched to the role he had always coveted, that of music critic. As he explains in his endearing memoir this year, Portrait Gallery, Edward Greenfield had initially been reluctant to leave Manchester for Westminster, agreeing when he'd extorted his editor's promise of a column reviewing classical records. As a kind of coda to his political days, he followed that unoperatic figure Sir Alec Douglas-Home through his final election campaign. Thereafter it was Beethoven, Brahms, Puccini and Verdi, reviewed in terms that made him recognised by musicians as the most benign of critics. Now 85 and in indifferent health, Ted has preserved that zest for all forms of music and all kinds of musician that infected his earliest writings. We salute him.
The music critic has preserved a zest for all forms of music and all kinds of musician