Letter: Rachmaninov

Sir: It grieves me to quarrel publicly with a colleague, but Martin Anderson's piece on Rachmaninov ("The most Russian of them all", 5 May) is the last straw. Where did he get the idea that Stravinsky was a "mean, petty character" who might have "resented the sheer open-heartedness of Rachmaninov"? Not only did Stravinsky support the indigent family of his wife's sister for more than 15 years after the First War but, like Rachmaninov, he gave unstintingly to the legion of emigre relations who knocked on his door in the Twenties and Thirties.

STEPHEN WALSH

Welsh Newton, Monmouth