7 JANUARY 1989, Page 20

Divine afflatus

Sir: Of course Jeffrey Bernard (Low life, 10 December) is right that Mozart would have made a fart sound divine. I don't know that he ever tried, but Osmin's low D, sustained for eight bars in '0 vie will ich triumpheren' is about a man being throt- tled. The aria conveys the death struggles of hanging, tortured men. Yet it is indeed divine.

R.F. Lait

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