Dear Sir,—I feel "Cecilia"—presumably a music student wise enough to conceal his identity under a pseudonym—has somewhat misjudged the quality of the instruments at present in the Music Room: I for one, should not have described the Steinway piano as rickety". One can only assume "Cecillia's" personal ambitions as a pianist have been undervalued by the authorities at Victoria, as a musician with a mere modicum of experience of good instruments would unhesitatingly class the College Steinway as a sound reliable piano, if not of the standard of Solomon's own. I would certainly agree, however, that the sustaining pedal could do with a dose of black lead.

The harpsichord needs no justification in print it is not merely inferior type of piano, but an instrument with a literature as individual and characteristic as that of the violin. The keyboard music of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries is not to be dismissed lightly, and it is as much of an anachronism to play this on the piano as it would be to play Chopin on the harpsichord. Historical inaccuracies, even in musicians, are inexcusable. The Music Departments instrument is a "genuine" harpsichord (Kirchmann, 1758), not one of the bloated modern so-called copies: undoubtedly it has deficiencies—a somewhat tempremental action being one of them—but it more than compensates for these by the opportunities afforded to the music student of hearing Baroque and pre-Baroque music performed on the instrument for which it was written. (I trust no body will resurrect the hoary old argument about Bach's possible preference for the piano, had he known it as it is today. His comments to Frederick of Potsdam are in themselves sufficient rebuttal.)