To the Editor:

Terry Teachout’s contention in his review of Bernard Shaw, by Michael Holroyd [Books in Review, February], that in musical matters Shaw “became uncomfortable whenever he strayed very far from the shallows” is a laughable put-down of a body of sparkling and penetrating criticism that unlike most journalism is worth reading a century after it was written. Shaw’s prophetic insight is perhaps best shown in his insistence on the supreme greatness of Mozart; for better or worse, he was a pioneer in the transformation of Mozart the Victorian-era China-doll figure into today’s cult idol.

Erwin Klingsberg
Mountainside, New Jersey

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Terry Teachout writes:

In fact, I very much admire Shaw the music critic, not least for having pioneered the modern view of Mozart. The fact remains, though, that Shaw seems to have been made uncomfortable by certain kinds of direct emotional statement, in music as in everything else. Brahms left him cold; he had little of interest to say about Schubert, Chopin, or Liszt; his writings on Verdi are intelligent but priggish. This does not lessen the significance of his music criticism, which I believe to be of permanent value, but it is certainly a reflection of the deeper emotional deficiencies that Michael Holroyd discusses in his biography.