4 MARCH 1960, Page 15

GRAVES OF ACADEME SIR.—No past student of the royal music

school where I wasted three years would find any difficulty in vouching for the accuracy of David Cairns's quota- tion from the institution's senior lecturer in the history of music: 'I don't know why it is, when I think of Liszt, the word meretricious occurs to me.' I heard this three times—each time Liszt came up in the yearly merry-go-round. He wasn't the only one to be cut down to size. Mahler, 1 don't doubt, is still being written off two weeks after Liszt, as the com- poser of 'Kindertotenlieder. That means "songs about dead babies." Strikes me as a silly thing for any man to write about.'—Yours faithfully,

IRVINO WARDLE 24 Kidbrooke Park Road, Blackheath, 8E13