Wagner wallows
Sir: Michael Henderson states (Arts, 18 July) that Wagner’s music reveals the aspects of the human personality that we try hardest to suppress. Certainly many deep ideas and emotions are revealed. But instead of purging the emotions with pity and fear, and achieving a catharsis, Wagner wallows in them, exalting primitive values, ignoring or despising detachment and reason. A genius of the first rank, but highly undesirable.
David Damant
London WC2
Long echoes
Sir: My old friend Peter Phillips (Arts, 18 July) observes that ‘St Paul’s Cathedral in London has such a long echo that a composer might want to build in extra rests for the sound to clear’, but uncharacteristically errs when he goes on to say: ‘I can’t think of a single piece that obviously takes this into account.’
There is just such a piece, by the 18th-century composer, cuckold and drunk Jonathan Battishill, who had been a boy chorister at St Paul’s. His fine setting of Isaiah lxiii 15, O Lord, look down from heaven, was written for the cathedral and derives its most striking effect from dramatic pauses at the agonised entreaty ‘Where is thy zeal and thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies toward me?’ Readers who frequent quires and places where they sing will know that in today’s parishes this… er, passage is usually… well, bowdlerised.
Richard Abram
Wanstead Park, Essex
Causeway and effect
Sir: I refer to the article written by Prue Leith and published in your magazine (‘Depressed? You soon will be’, 11 July) without any reference to us first to comment or to check accuracy. As a successful private concern, it is inevitable that from time to time someone’s imagination will run wild and such a story will be written. Abuse of luxury brands by a dissatisfied consumer happens, and for every person who does not like something, there will be many, many more who do. Each man to his own.
However, may I state that Ms Leith has never been a client of the Causeway Retreat. If she has a partner who has been a client, professional confidentiality restricts me from commenting. Indeed, it is her own total lack of discretion that leads me to challenge this article. Again, I am unable to comment on any client who has been at our facility, but that Ms Leith would choose to write descriptions of patients — whether real or imagined — is an unforgivable breach of a vulnerable person’s confidentiality. Indeed, to refer to such individuals as ‘inmates’, suggesting the need for a custodial situation, displays a wanton disregard — disrespect even — for the severity of the illness that brings them to seek treatment.
This article, sir, was neither witty, nor gentle, nor balanced, and was clearly not written by a credible critic. In fact, it would seem to us an abuse of journalist privilege by Ms Leith that she would use your magazine to publish such an obviously personal view without thought for the impact on others.
I would end by saying that even though this piece failed to give the reader any accurate information about the Causeway Retreat, it does speak volumes about its author.
Brendan Quinn
CEO, the Causeway Retreat
The cost of green measures
Sir: Even if those who persist in believing in man-made global warming (Letters 18 July) are right, they have to answer a more fundamental question. The cost of implementing the Kyoto protocol, which aims to deal with this problem, is estimated at over US$150 billion per annum, and the predicted result is that average global temperatures would be less than one half of one degree centigrade lower, after 100 years of full implementation, than they would otherwise have been. This is a temperature difference too small to be detected by most thermometers. Would the expenditure of such colossal sums for such a trivial result be a sensible use of money, or would the funds be better spent on preparing for rising sea levels and other precautions?
Maritz Vandenberg
London SW15
A foreign field
Sir: Jeremy Clarke’s difficulties (Low Life, 11 July) with his Bulgarian co-fielder reminded me of the time I accompanied my Irish niece to her first cricket match. She studied the play intently and after 30 minutes’ silence inquired: ‘But how do you get the bowlers out?’
David Walsh
Via email
Wasted questions
Sir: May I add to the interesting list of proposed constitutional reforms (‘Political reform is not for politicians’, 18 July)? The prime minister and all ministers answering questions at the dispatch box should be required to take the oath to give the truth and nothing but the truth. The Speaker should also have the power to require that every question is given a relevant answer. Only then will Prime Minister’s Questions, and other ministerial question time, return to their original purpose of revealing information about the government. I would add that sycophantic questions should be banned, but I fear that may be asking too much.
Keith Ferris
Maidstone, Kent
From little acorns
Sir: My grandfather hugged the oak tree planted by the woman whose cakes were burnt by Alfred the Great. Is that a record?
Peter Head
Hethersett, Norwich
Finding Fosses
Sir: On the matter of direct family relations, the following may be hard to beat. Edward Foss, the grandfather of my cousin, Mary Hunt (née Foss), who is now aged 94, was born in 1787, two years before the French Revolution.
Diana Sparkes (née Foss)
Southampton, Hampshire
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