Letters: Nov. 17, 1967

(4 of 4)

Sir: TIME'S splendid story on Stanislaw Skrowaczewski. music director of the Minneapolis Symphony [Nov. 10], was received by the maestro's associates and admirers with both delight and sorrow. On Friday, Nov. 3, just before the orchestra's second Minneapolis performance of Krzysztof Penderecki's Passion, Mr. Skrowaczewski developed a detached retina of the right eye. In spite of the resulting visual difficulty, he directed a stunning performance of this complex orchestral and choral work. The performance received a standing, shouting ovation. Two days later, the maestro underwent surgery that was successful but that will require several weeks' recuperation. The Minneapolis Symphony's New York première of the Penderecki work, scheduled for Nov. 21 in Carnegie Hall, has therefore been postponed indefinitely. Eventually, we still hope to bring Mr. Skrowaczewski, the orchestra, soloists and choruses to Carnegie Hall as described in TIME'S story and to introduce an extraordinary masterpiece to New York concertgoers. RICHARD M. CISEK Manager Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra Minneapolis

Spinning in His Graves

Sir: Uncharitable TIME has abbreviated, mocked at and slightly miscopied the Shah-Graves literal English rendering of a mystical passage from Sufic Sheikh Ghiathuddin Abdul Fath Omar ibn Ibrahim al Khayaam al Ghaq's Rubaiyat manuscript preserved by the Afghan Shah family since A.D. 1153 [Nov. 3]. In 1856 (not 1889) this passage was "transmogrified" (his own word) by dilettante, freethinking, unuxiorious Edward Fitzgerald. He raised the Sheikh's minimal bread requirements from half a loaf to a loaf; misrepresented his gourd of wine as a bottle of booze rather than a sacramental drink; planted a tree in the wide desert as a picnic site (to assist the rhymes enow and thou, with bough); and substituted a singing houri for a meditative fellow adept. But TIME is right: bad poetry, like bad money, is apt to drive out the good. ROBERT GRAVES Manhattan