Sir, - Anyone who has had the misfortune to follow the controversy over the pop Messiah must feel appalled by the level of debate. Can one imagine a quarrel in literature or the visual arts being conducted in this unsavoury mixture of vitriol and special pleading?
I have to admit I have not seen the show at the RDS. As a practising musician I have been bored too deeply, too often by the Messiah to care much about its fate; the populists and authenticists are welcome to slug it out as far as I am concerned.
I would, however, like to pose a question: how did so much public money manage to find its way into this admittedly commercial project in a country where the state of education funding for music is so abysmal? As a composer who has worked extensively in schools I know whereof I speak.
The musician who works in education in Ireland makes a journey to the heart of darkness. Enthusiastic teachers try to instil the love of music without so much as a piano at their disposal. In some of the better schools you might find a box of cheap percussion instruments, as often as not paid for out of the teacher's pocket. Often even basic singing is not taught.
Music is the art form to which the young feel closest, yet where provision for it is concerned, the story is a long, sad one. The hungry look up and are not fed. The danger of controversies like this is that they perpetuate the myth that we have a thriving music culture and that there exists, pari passu, a healthy debate. We don't, and there doesn't. - Yours, etc., Kevin O Connell,
Clifden Court, Dublin 7.