Sir, - Petroc Trelawny's article "The lure of the land" (Arts, August 8th), though interesting and well researched, renewed the deep regret I have felt since acquainting myself with the programmes of this year's BBC Proms. I write this in the beautiful town of Kenmare, where E.J. Moeran lies buried "in the mountain country he loved so well" (this inscription can just be made out on his overgrown grave).
Moeran was one of the finest exponents in these islands of the "pastoral music", of which Petroc Trelawny writes. Few experts would deny that his musical output is at least the equal of that of Finzi, Rubbra and other "country composers" who are featured this year. His Symphony in G Minor, for example, composed in the late 1930s, mostly on Valentia Island, rivals the best of those by his contemporaries Walton, Vaughan Williams, Bax and others. And Moeran too has had a recent anniversary, the 50th of his death.
Was Petroc Trelawny subconsciously aware of this grievous omission from the Proms, for he refers to Ernest (rather than Edmund) Rubbra, Ernest being the first name of Moeran? Moeran was a popular character in Kenmare in the 1930s and 1940s, until his untimely death at Kenmare pier in December 1950. Locals who still recall him point out that if ever there had been a mayor of Kenmare, Jack Moeran would have been the people's choice.
His works are more quintessentially pastoral than those by, say, Rubbra or Constant Lambert. Many of them were inspired by the landscapes and seascapes of Kerry, and earlier by those of Norfolk, and they betray the influence of folk-songs of both areas, some of which he collected himself. His father, an Anglican vicar, moved to England from Dublin before Moeran's birth.
It is thus regrettable that Petroc Trelawny missed the opportunity, in The Irish Times, of all places, of commenting on the one glaring omission from the Proms' "countryside season", and including in his own survey an assessment of the melancholic, yet life-enhancing music of this Anglo-Irish composer. - Yours, etc.,
Tony Williams, Ashbrook, Howth Road, Dublin 3.