Communications

This column provides a forum for responses to the contents of this journal, and for information of interest to readers. The editor reserves the right to publish letters in excerpted form and to edit them for conciseness and clarity.

 

To the Editor:

It has long been tentatively said—I believe lacking proof—that "Yankee Doodle" was played by the American army at the surrender of the British troops at Yorktown on 19 October 1781. Proof has now been found: Beginning 1 November 1781 in Fishkill, N.Y., a number of newspapers reported such playing. This was discussed in—and details can be found in—The Performing Arts in Colonial American Newspapers, 1690-1783: Text Data Base and Index (Mary Jane Corry, Kate Van Winkle Keller, and Robert M. Keller [New York: University Music Editions, 1997]).

James Fuld
New York City

To the Editor:

Schirmer Reference notes that it incorrectly stated the authorship on the cover and title page of the 6th edition of Music Since 1900 (reviewed by D. J. Hoek, Notes, September 2002, pp. 51-53). The author of this classic work is Nicolas Slonimsky. All entries through 1991, the date of the 5th edition, are entirely his work. Laura Kuhn provided updates through 2000 for the 6th edition. All books still in inventory have been reprinted and rebound with the correct attribution.

Schirmer Reference regrets the error.

Stephen Wasserstein
Schirmer Reference, New York City

To the Editor:

We write to respond to an error in Victor Fell Yellin's review of our book Women Writing Opera (Notes, June 2002, pp. 811- 13). Because our book discusses numerous cases of male-female collaboration in which the woman's contribution was viewed with suspicion, we found it ironic that Dr. Yellin should assert that our book was "largely the work of [Jacqueline] Letzter" and that Robert Adelson had a "lesser role" in its authorship. Nothing could be further from the truth; all parts of the book were written by both of us. Dr. Yellin's reference to the wording of a recent notice that appeared in the Harvard alumni magazine Colloquy ("with Robert Adelson" rather than "and Robert Adelson") is meaningless. This notice appears in a section devoted to books by Harvard alumni and the wording is simply the way the editors of Colloquy distinguish betwen Harvard alumni (such as Letzter) and nonalumni.

Robert Adelson and
Jacqueline Letzter
University Park, Maryland and
University of Maryland, College Park

The author responds:

I stand by my review and would receive much pleasure if it were read again.

Victor Fell Yellin
New York University