Jocelyn Wang writes: >Part of the premise of being a musician is not to place one's self above >the music. Aha! Is it really? I think with this astounding phrase we reach the heart of Jocelyn's underlying presumption about performance. At no point in this debate has Jocelyn given house room to any argument allowing practical performers any rights over the material, only - as she has now spelt out - responsibilities of service. First, as a performer and director myself, this "premise" is certainly not one I can recognise. I believe that to engage with drama or music at a meaningful level, to communicate anything at all, I simply cannot afford NOT to place myself - not above, but assuredly on a level with the musico/dramatic material with which I am working. Performance (whether or not we choose to denigrate Malcolm Bilston's fastidious and sensitive approach to Mozart repeats) has to be a collaboration, not a rite of worship, otherwise we're dead in the water. The Sanctimonious Reverential is a type commonly spotted amongst audiences, but in my experience pretty much unknown amongst performers - except of course as a Pecksniffian gesture to help bolster the bank balance. Once again, I urge Jocelyn to read Pushkin's "Mozart & Salieri", which makes this point so much more elegantly. Christopher Webber, Blackheath, London, UK. http://www.nashwan.demon.co.uk/zarzuela.htm "ZARZUELA!"