NIGHTS OF BATH
SIR,—So Mr. Anthony Stephenson wishes to regard Gershwin as the American Mozart. But he must not lose his sense of proportion. On the evidence of the Bath Festival, I declared that Gielgud, unlike Cherkassky, does not waste his virtuoso gifts. I might have added that when an arts festival is limited to a mere half-dozen orchestral concerts it should avoid devoting a whole evening to a composer of Gershwin's stature and refrain from engaging a supreme executant to serve that composer alone. What if a National Theatre presented Olivier as Archie Rice to the total exclusion of Macbeth and Justice Shallow?
However, I do plead guilty to judging Gielgud by his Richard II, Hamlet, Leontes, Angelo and Prospero, performances which Mr. Stephenson may have missed due to age, taste or geography. So, while reminding him of G. H. Lewes's dictum that the greatest artist is he who is greatest in the highest reaches of his art, I can assure Mr. Stephenson that if Sir John turns up at next year's Bath Festival with passages from Dear Octopus, Cavalcade and On the Spot (the English dramatic equivalent of Gershwin?), I will deal with him accordingly.-- Yours faithfully,
Pine Cottage, Dorking
KENNETH GREGORY
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