SIR,—Mr. Sidney Harrison's letter in response to David Cairns's criticism
of the music colleges is most disturbing.
He first comments adversely on the quality of many of the students, and then makes the astonish- ing statement that the teaching of modern music is limited because these same students 'don't like it.' Who ever heard of a university paying little attention to contemporary poetry because students didn't like it?
Mr. Harrison implies the existence of a deplorable state of affairs in our big music schools as far as contemporary music is concerned. Furthermore, his letter substantiates one of Mr. Cairns's principal charges, namely, that in neglecting the study of modern composers, the colleges are conspicuously failing to perform an important part of their duty.— Yours faithfully,
M. C. SHIRLEY Misenden, Stroud, Gloucestershire
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