16 SEPTEMBER 1978, Page 17

Bartok again

Sir: Mr Humphrey Burton claims that the last movement of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra evokes 'wild horses galloping across the Hungarian plain', as disproof of Mr Richard Ingrams's contention that the work in question is 'bleak'. Has Mr Burton, I wonder, ever been to the Great Hungarian Plain? Has he travelled between Debreczen and Hodmezovasarhely on a January afternoon, with the feczar howling from the steppes of Russia to the East? Had he done so, he might well consider the spectacle of wild horses galloping through such a scene the bleakest image in the world. Tibor Bekescaba 11 Prince of Wales Drive, London SW11