Not charm enough
Sir: Denis Stevens's attack on the personal- ities of a succession of Heather Professors and the performance of the Oxford Music Faculty over the last 50 years CA little light- fingered', 20 January) is ample evidence that music — or at least professional and academic music-making — does not have the 'charms to soothe the savage breast'. He is, of course, entitled to his views, but he might perhaps have made it clear that the man he alleges Professor Westrup treated so shabbily can only have been him- self, as a quick glance at the relevant entry in the New Grove Dictionary of Music makes perfectly obvious. Such concealment makes one begin to wonder whether his low opin- ion of Professor Arnold might not have something to do with the fact that Arnold published a popular book on one of Stevens's own specialities, Claudio Mon- teverdi. And it also makes one keen to know what he really has against the prolific Professor Kerman. Perhaps Professor Stevens might care to enlighten us on these and any other remaining sub-texts.
Since my objection to Denis Stevens's article is his lack of openness I ought myself to reveal that Westrup was one of the peo- ple who interviewed me before I was admit- ted as the sole undergraduate to read music at Wadham College in October 1956. In my four years as a full-time student I found him a great help and encouragement. His industry was prodigious. He may have been short of money, but he edited the leading British musicological quarterly, Music and Letters, for nothing and even parcelled up the books for review himself. Every Michaelmas term he spent his weekends rehearsing the Opera Club's annual pro- duction, the English translation for which he had already made (without a fee) in the long vacation. And if there was a member of the Music Faculty at any concert or opera in Oxford, professional or under- graduate, it was almost invariably Westrup. All this was in addition to his regular teach- ing, lecturing and administration, from which he appeared to be no more absent than any other faculty member sufficiently distinguished to be in demand as external examiner at other universities.
Ernest Warburton 10a Park Avenue, St Albans, Herfordshire
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