John G. Deacon writes:

>I just heard Thomas (H)Ades' latest work *Asyla* (or is it Asylum?) and
>hope that that CD doesn't come my way by accident.

I heard it over the radio during the summer, and didn't think much of it.
It wasn't as bad as some of his other stuff, though.

>They say (who says?) that he's the greatest British composer since Britten.

The answer is in the question - it's the same people who say that Britten
was the greatest British composer of his time (i.e.  the time of late
Vaughan Williams, early Tippett, Rubbra, Grace Williams and Wordsworth,
amongst others).

The greatest British composer since then? Well, I recently bought the
Chandos 2CD set of Daniel Jones's string quartets.  The earlier ones are
good, and the later ones (from the 1980s, IIRC) are even better.  I can't
OTOMH think of anything else post-1980 of comparable quality by a British
composer.

Peter Varley
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