"I don't like to guest-conduct so much," said this most self-effacing maestro (if that is not in fact an oxymoron).

Mr. Leonhardt, the most self-effacing of artists and, at 68, an elder statesman of the current generation of early-music practitioners, has appeared far too seldom in New York.

SAUVIGNON BLANC has to be the most self-effacing of wines.

But in the most understated of repertory, on the most subdued of instruments and in the most self-effacing way, Jordi Savall comes close to being one.

And he is one of the most self-effacing and thoughtful professional athletes around.

Among the most self-effacing of stars, Leetch is so uncomfortable talking about his "persona" that he even denies the obvious - that he looks bigger and fitter than in past years.

Purple sandpipers arc the most self-effacing of birds.

Her canvases do not have a flamboyant personal style; instead they assert the principal that all work (even the most self-effacing) has value.

Now all that baseball's most self-effacing superstar wants is one thing more: "That the focus doesn't necessarily become the streak," Ripken said.

And for much of the movie, Sarah seems, if not quite peripheral to her own family as it tries to reinvent itself in New York, then at least its most self-effacing member.