SIR,—I find myself unable to refrain froeit answering Mr. C.
W. Orr's unkind and con- temptuous attack on musical amateurs in your issue of September 18th.
I do not know if Mr. Orr would class him- self as part of " the cream of London's musical culture " or as an ordinary profes- sional—perhaps neither—nor do I challenge the percentages he quotes, but I do say that a great part of the attraction of hearing a classic lies in the interpretation. Would Mr. Orr say, I wonder, that, as an amateur of the theatre, I was airing a " half-baked opinion " if I said I preferred Gielgud's Hamlet to Olivier's ?
I would remind Mr. Orr not only of the correct meaning of the word "amateur," but also that, were it not for enthusiastic and sometimes wealthy amateurs of music, plenty of professional musicians would be out of a job.—Yours faithfully, .
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