For what it is worth I have a tape recording of Paul conducting Gerard Victory's Favola di Notte. As this piece was composed in 1966, it is probably a world premiere, or an Irish premiere at least. I have not seen a score of this piece but I do not hear anything cautious in Paul's tempi. It seems like a very tricky piece to bring off effectively and for me Paul does a most admirable job of it.
Regarding his issues with A.J. Potter, (and everything I say here is pure personal speculation) I take no exception to what Paul said about Irish audiences (indeed I can well believe what he said was correct) and have no problem in believing that Paul's issue with Potter was nothing to do with him being an Irish composer or from the old school but rather that he just didn't rate him as a composer, full stop. Potter unable to take this blow to his ego tried to dress up Paul's objections or lack of interest in his music in some ideological garb, much in the way many British composers who felt they were snubbed by the BBC in the 1960s invented the baseless and erroneous notion of Glock's blacklist rather than accept the possibility that maybe Glock and many of the BBC producers at the time just didn't think they were up to much compared to tonal composers of real talent like Britten and Tippett. A point I raised here before in connection with Ruth Gipps.
I wish to emphasise that my conjecture is not a reflection of my opinion of Potter's music but just an opinion on Paul's possible standpoint.
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