AS a member of the audience at the BBC Philharmonic concert at the University of York on March 2, I was struck by the fact that the advertised work for soprano and orchestra, Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, was not being performed, but another set of songs (Mahler's Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen).

I was even more surprised when I read Martin Dreyer's review in the following day's Evening Press, since the performance he praises did not actually take place. When he refers to "the poetry's tear-jerking reminiscences" and says that "the closing storm was frightening", this doesn't make much sense in relation to the beautifully-sung celebration of spring with which the song cycle begins or the evocation of sleep with which it ends.

Was Mr Dreyer actually present at this concert?

Laura Attridge,

Chantry Lane,

Bishopthorpe,

York.

...WAS Martin Dreyer, in his review of the BBC Philharmonic's concert at the Central Hall so mesmerised by Katarina Karneus's beautifully focused tone that he failed to notice that the song cycle she sang was not in fact the advertised Kindertoten-lieder by Mahler but Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen by the same composer?

Ken Creese,

Park Avenue, Harrogate.

Martin Dreyer writes:

Your correspondents are right. Having spotted the absence of a correlation between the German being sung and the translations provided, I smelt a rat, but assumed my memory of the work was at fault. I should have checked. Both works have a strong undercurrent of grief and bitter nostalgia. Since no announcement of the change was made, either before or during the concert, we must assume that the university music department got into the same muddle.