1 DECEMBER 1973, Page 5

Dame Ethel and others

Sir: I am delighted to be reproved for my ignorance of music by Mr Bayliss, who apparently believes it proper to describe Dame Ethel Smyth (1 trust some helpful printer does not again add an ' e ') as a 'singer' rather than a 'composer.' By the same token Benjamin Britten becomes a ' pianist,' Purcell a ' repairer of instruments,' Schoenberg a 'painter.' Tchaikovsky a 'junior civil servant' and Mozart a ' servitor.'

Richard Luckett St Catharine's College, Cambridge