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Wartime song
I thoroughly enjoyed Andrew Green’s investigation of the possible inspirations of Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending (January issue), but balked slightly at his assertion that ‘the interruption of the First World War surely prevented Philip Napier Miles from visiting Italy’. In the First World War, Italy was allied with the Entente Powers (France, the UK, Russia, Japan and – after 1917 – the US), rather than the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottomans). It would therefore have been fairly easy for Miles to move back and forth between the UK and Italy then, and thus not necessarily have to cram the writing of Sword Song into a few months in early 1919. He could perhaps have worked on it throughout the conflict.
Joseph Nicholas, Tottenham
Highbrow eyebrows
To Patrick Hoyte (Letters, Christmas), who was distracted by Leonard Bernstein and his antics while conducting, could I recommend that he watch a DVD of Lenny conducting the Vienna Philharmonic in the finale of Haydn’s Symphony No. 88? He is quite motionless and seems to be conducting with his eyebrows. The performance sparkles. With his sense of fun, Haydn would undoubtedly have loved it.
Neil Sinyard, Saxby All Saints
Speaking out
Richard Morrison’s Opinion (Christmas issue) that today’s musicians ‘shouldn’t be afraid to take on political causes’ is only partly true. Given the recent voices of Marin Alsop, Simon Rattle and Nicola Benedetti to name a few, many others have voiced concerns over funding of music in schools, let alone its educational and health benefits to everyone. Admittedly, more protests occur with popular music and on social media, but today’s artists do protest wherever they can. Today, there are many in the business that just survive from year on year with the threat of cuts and constant erosion of all music services – the limited few survivors who could speak risk their livelihoods also due to the threat of cuts. Perhaps Richard Morrison and his journalist colleagues should have spoken much louder and much sooner and then we might possibly be in a better place, but we must live in hope.
Paul Chaundy, Cardiff
Chopped up CDs
I have been a subscriber to BBC Music Magazine for 30 years. The offer in 1993 was for 12 issues at £39, so you hav
