PEYSER’S MUSICAL LOW NOTE

I have not yet read Joan Peyser’s book on the Norman Mailer of American music, Leonard Bernstein, but if Peyser’s standards of scholarship resemble her habits of public discourse, the book must be, so to speak, a lulu (“Bernstein Biographer Incredulous at Notoriety,” by Donna Perlmutter, May 28).

Peyser asserts, without one shred of evidence, that “most contemporary composers are homosexual.” Whom does she mean, one wonders? Elliott Carter, Steve Reich, Olivier Messaien, Luciano Berio, Thea Musgrave, William Bolcom, Leon Kirchner? (Or, for that matter, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, Dallapiccola, Varese, Stravinsky--who are not contemporary only because they happen to be dead, as opposed to those who are contemporary only because they happen to be alive.)

Peyser then segues to the Homintern Conspiracy: “The mode of ‘you-scratch-my-back-and-I’ll-scratch-yours’ (is) rampant, making sex, in this case, a social force.”

In fact, a pretty face and a willingness to hop into bed are no more a shortcut to success in the world of music than in the world of films. Much as the envious and the disappointed hate to admit it, talent and hard work still count for something.

FREDERICK HAMMOND

Professor of Music

UCLA