This is a page of one of Baines’s notebooks from 1948 (vol. VIII), showing the seating arrangement of some Dutch orchestras. Baines wrote about a similar subject in one of his articles for the Philharmonic Post, around the same period, when he was still third bassoon in the LPO. He commented that as he watched a rehearsal of the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra in the Albert Hall, he observed with amazement how the fourth flute was asked to listen from the back of the hall and give his opinion on the balance. Baines wrote: ‘There was certainly something different about this Dutch outfit’—namely that every player ‘saw music from a conductor’s point of view’, which resulted in a ‘miraculous ensemble’.
