Sir, – I concur with Mick Heaney (Radio, Weekend Review, January 16th) when he comments that "with the recent axing of distinctive and long-running shows such as Donald Helme's wide-ranging Jazz Alley and Tim Thurston's Sunday-morning choral oasis Gloria, Lyric FM seems intent on purging any voices or musical styles that won't soothe a middlebrow".
Tim Thurston's Gloria programme presented a thoughtful, illuminating choice of music every week.
Gloria was a both an educational and wonderfully uplifting programme, providing informative access to top-quality recordings of superb repertoire and will be sorely missed by many. It provided a peaceful and thoughtful two hours of sacred music on Sunday mornings. It was a notable difference in excellence to the banal and trite offerings on Lyric FM's Monday to Friday mornings.
And in Tim Thurston, Lyric FM had a presenter who, with dignity and insight, presented not just the music and associated facts, but created the spiritual context within which such music was written to be played and experienced. – Yours, etc,
JACK MORRISSEY,
Dublin 16.