Sir: Professor Stevens knows that the dead cannot sue for
slander and therefore turns his gratuitously rough tongue on Sir Jack Westrup and Denis Arnold. That Professor Stevens has a deep dislike of Oxford's Fac- ulty of Music is no excuse for laying unfounded charges at the feet of those who can no longer defend themselves. He uses the recent case of Simon Heighes, sen- tenced for stealing books from Oxford libraries, for settling some old scores and by a sleight of hand makes a causal link between his own disagreement with Sir Jack Westrup of some 40 years ago and a fabricated claim that the Faculty of Music `knowingly employ[ed] a dishonest person'. Professor Stevens should at least get his facts right: although teaching students at an Oxford college, Simon Heighes was never employed by the University of Oxford.
Professor Stevens's gibe that Kerman is a shortened form of Zuckerman is in the best tradition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Hasn't The Spectator got better things to publish?
Bojan Bujic
Faculty of Music, University of Oxford, Oxford
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