Former Financial Times music critic Ronald Crichton, who died last week, was a force on the newspaper’s arts page in the 1960s and ’70s. “A man of broad culture and wide horizons, Crichton wrote with belle-lettriste style and elegance, which led some to assume he had an old-fashioned mind. Not so: he was decidedly modern in outlook, following the new music scene with unquenchable curiosity and showing an early appreciation of avant-garde productions. Crichton would often see the less obvious side of a performance, in a way envied by other critics. He was not a spectacular writer: you had to live with his writing before realising what an interesting, enjoyable and illuminating critic he was.”