Bartok not bleak
Sir: I see Richard Ingrams has been indulging in another spot of Burton-bashing (19 August). In his piece about the Proms on BBC Television he labels me 'smug' without citing any evidence and then reveals his own ignorance once again by describing Bartok's• Concerto for Orchestra in one • word: 'bleak'. The said concerto has five 'movements. One is by turns romantic and jolly. Another is mysterious and close to inature; another is a jaunty display of all the iinstruments of the orchestra in turn; the Finale can be heard as an evocation of wild horses galloping across the Hungarian plain.
Bleak it is not, and nor was the 'Prom' occasion — a concert given by young musicians from all over the world playing in an International Youth Orchestra.
One is accustomed to reading unsupported assertions in Ingrams' own magazine but it is sad to see such sloppy writing in the columns of the Spectator.
Humphrey Burton Head of Music and Arts, Television, British Broadcasting Corporation, Richmond Way, London W14
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