Desmond Fennell, Anguillara, Italy, writes:

From Bob Gilmore’s article (JMI, January–February), I note that Steve Reich has written: ‘All music turns out to be ethnic music’. This reinforces what I said about ‘classical’ music 1750-1900 in a letter in the same issue; namely, that it is essentially German ensemble music, and that it would be very clarifying if it were called that, or GEM for short.

‘Contemporary’, ‘new’, ‘living’, ‘modern’ music – all supposedly but spuriously distinguishing terms – would then be New Gem, simply. Its place in the contemporary music scene would be unambiguously defined and therefore clarified. The alternative is the continuance of the present multi-adjectival mess.