Sir, John Percival’s letter (Jan 27) describing Britten’s Peter Grimes as “discordant rubbish” reminds me of Thomas Beecham’s famous comment: “The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes”.
I have never been able to understand the aversion to this particular composer. The score of Grimes is no more discordant than Stravinsky, Shostakovich or mature Strauss (to name but three). Is one to dismiss all “modern” music on the ground that it is discordant? What then should one do about Mozart’s Dissonance Quartet, say, or the hammer blows in Beethoven’s Fifth, let alone the works of Gesualdo?
There is a great deal of concordance in Grimes, and the passages of dissonance portray moments of violence and tension — and the drama is all the more powerful for them.
I see Mr Percival writes from Aldeburgh, Britten’s home and, in my experience, a place one is quite likely to meet people who dismiss his music thus.
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RODERICK WILLIAMS
London W14