RAYMOND DEANE,
Madam, - Dissension among those who are on the same side is always regrettable. However, it is clear that my colleague Fergus Sheil (October 26th) is a little too hasty in defending the Arts Council against what he takes to be my blanket criticism of its support for contemporary music.
If he re-reads my Irishman's Diary of October 19th, he will see that I was referring specifically to the commissioning of new compositions, an area in which the council has recently undone all its own good work.
I am delighted for the sake of Fergus's Crash Ensemble that they are still in receipt of Arts Council funding and that the kind of mixed media work in which they specialise meets the approval of the Council apparatchiks. However, unless there is a radical change of heart in the Council, public funding for "straight" classical composition is a thing of the past.
Yours, etc.,
RAYMOND DEANE, Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin.