His predilection for the music of Sibelius was also gratified: over the years four of the seven symphonies were played. His own music was occasionally performed and he was commissioned to write a work for the Centenary Season. From the Tower of Winds was the result. Modern orchestra It was in the late 1970s that the orchestra first tackled a Mahler symphony. At that time The Daily Telegraph'''s northern edition (edited by the music critic and author, Michael Kennedy) ran a weekly ‘Music in the North’ column and in one such edition he drew attention to the performance, noting that he would never have anticipated the day when an amateur orchestra would play a Mahler symphony. In singling out the Phil he was according it a well-deserved accolade. Later years brought performances of Béla Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra, Edward Elgar's Falstaff, Claude Debussy's La mer and Benjamin Britten's "Four Sea Interludes". In 1989, after 25 years in office, Arthur Butterworth hinted that he did not plan to go on indefinitely though it was not until 1993 that he gave his final concert. Butterworth was succeeded by Rupert D'Cruze. Originally trained as a trombonist, D'Cruze soon turned to conducting, winning prizes in competitions in Hungary and Japan in 1992. D’Cruze broadened the orchestra’s repertoire even further, showing an especial proclivity for the music of Gustav Mahler. The orchestra performed of the Sixth Symphony in 1995, and the First and Fifth were also performed under his leadership. In 1997 the orchestra gave the world premiere of All The Long Night Through, a commissioned piece from Bill Connor, for piano, percussion and orchestra. In 1997 they performed of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, reviewed in the Yorkshire Post in the following glowing terms. ‘… (this work) long feared by the best of performers, was undertaken with immense confidence and vigour. This performance worked because D'Cruze not only knew that score extremely well but succeeded in shaping its disparate sections into a satisfying whole…’ The years 2000 and 2001 saw the Phil produce a CD of significant performances whilst planning major concerts, including performances of Sally Beamish’s concerto for saxophone, The Imagined Sound of Sun on Stone, with John Harle as soloist and another huge Mahler symphony, his third. When John Harle was taken ill, a potential problem became the beginning of a new musical friendship when his place was taken by Jack