MONTE CASSINO Mr. L. G. Wickham Legg asks an organist
friend to play him the Finale of Mendelssohn's Sixth Organ Sonata, he may find the solution to the musical problem set him in Monte Cassino monastery forty years ago. Mendelssohn (1809-47), in writing this Finale, may have recalled the melody of Rockingham (or Caton), the tune associated with Isaac • Watts's hymn and described in the English Hymnal as " Adapted by E. Miller, 1731-1807, harmony chiefly from S. Webbe (A Collection of. Psalm Tunes, azo)." It is quite possible that he heard this tune during his wanderings in Britain, but it may well be that there is no connexion between the two melodies other than the limited number of combinations of the notes of the musical scale.—Yours faithfully, LESLIE STEPHENS.
East Grove, Dry Hill Road, Tonbridge, Kent.
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