Sir: Of the older post-war scholars and per- formers of
baroque and Renaissance music few have a more distinguished record than Denis Stevens, nobody would deny that; equally, nobody who knows him would ever assert that he was a forgiving person. He has always been inclined to sound off against anybody who he believes has done him down or whose appointment he covets. Thus, in his article Denis, under the pretext of writing about Dr Simon Heighes, who stole and sold manuscripts, seizes the chance to bad-mouth three academics who have crossed him. Not stealing scores to be sure, but paying off old ones.
A little research would, I think, reveal that the man whose PhD was failed on a technicality out of spite was Denis Stevens. Jack Westrup, Oxford Professor of Music, is also accused (not for the first time in print by Professor Stevens) of neglecting his students, punishing Stevens because he was making a career as a BBC presenter of pre-classical music (Stevens was in the BBC making just such a career). Joseph Kerman is then accused of causing an Englishman to lose his job at the University of Califor- nia. Could that Englishman have been Denis Stevens? You bet. (Rather amusingly Stevens attempts to smear Kerman because he changed his name from Zuckerman and his brother was a famous bassoonist — a bassoonist brother, oh, put him in hand- cuffs immediately!) Stevens would like to have been appoint- ed Oxford Professor of Music, so he has a swipe or two at Denis Arnold, partly because he was a trifle quirky (imagine, an academic who was quirky!) In fact Stevens would have been quite a good man for the Oxford job, apart from his well-known propensity for being so vindictive and litigious.
One wonders what his chair was in America, Professor of Antique Grudges? Jane Wood
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