To the Editors:

Samuel Lipman’s “Reflections on Bach” (September 1989) left me somewhat perplexed. Surely no one should be that indignant about “Mooged” or “Kurzweiled” Bach. Its proper place could only be in an advertisement for an expensive German car. What is disturbing is his failure to name names. While the attack on present-day Bach scholarship hits the mark, it would be helpful to know which performers fit into this crabby and unimaginative lot.

To my mind, the best Bach playing has always come from more eccentric talents: from Edwin Fischer and Wanda Landowska to Glenn Gould and, I would argue, Trevor Pinnock and Andras Schiff. Their passion and extravagance is evident in their playing regardless of the intellectual baggage or fear they may or may not carry.

Please, we don’t want gossip: just a few specifics to clarify his position.

Edmund D. Pitaro
New York, NY

To the Editors:

Just completed Samuel Lipman’s “Reflections on Bach.” I marvel at his capacity to fight back. Just when I think all sanity has fled the island or been crusted with conformity, there’s his voice in this concrete oblivion. It would be so much easier to surrender, to retreat to northern Vermont, if only Mr. Lipman and his colleagues would just pull over and let the flood tide of banality, arrogance, and mediocrity just wash over us all, completely, utterly, once and for all in one euphoric drowning. I don’t know whether to thank or reproach