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New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 742, 2 October 1953, Page 5

Sir,-In your issue of September 11, L. D. Austin claims that "the 20th Century has yet produced no British composers of the calibre of Elgar, Hubert Parry, Villiers, Stanford, Edward German, Coleridge Taylor, etc." To use the correspondent’s own words, "it is almost incredible that any musician should utter such nonsense." Elgar, I would agree, has written some magnificent music, the two symphonies, the two concertos, Enigma Variations, Falstaff, Gerontius, and so on-but so, too, has Vaughan Williams, and he certainly never wrote such trash as "Salut d’Amor," the "Pomp and Circumstance Marches," or the "Crown of India." lf performance is any guide, Parry’s music is forgotten except for "Jerusalem" and "Blest Pair of Sirens,’ and these are surpassed by the choral works of aughan Williams, Holst or Bantock, to name but three 20th Century composers. Stanford is a composer perhaps unjustly neglected-his clarinet concerto, doing the rounds,in a BBC programme at present, is an attractive work, while his Irish Rhapsodies are always well rfeceived. German’s Merrie England and Tom Jones receive an occasional performance, as does Coleridge-Taylor’s Hiawatha, But none of these composers has written music which compares favourably with such works as the Bliss piano concerto, or that of John Ireland

for that matter; the songs of Peter Warlock or Roger Quilter; the tone poems of Bax; the symphonies of Edmund Rubbra or the operas of Benjamin Britten. I advise Mr. Austin to begin with Albert Herring or Let’s Make an Opera, or even Vaughan Williams’s Hugh the Drover. He might later-try Riders to the Sea or Pilgrim’s Progress, and Peter Grimes. By then he should be able to "take" the music of William Walton, who may turn out to be, with Vaughan Williams, one of the greatest British composers since Purcell. After having given a fair and impartial hearing to these works, if Mr. Austin still believes what ‘he claims, then I will be prepared tea how to the judement of his authority.

ASINUS AD LYRAM

(Lower Hutt). |