SIR - I was most interested to read your recent revelation about Sir Edward Elgar (Worcester News, Tuesday, October 18). A short while ago I was taking a doze in the armchair when I awakened to the sound of glorious music, totally unfamiliar to me.

I was so intrigued I left the radio on, and listened right the way through to completion to find out what it was. To my utter surprise I learned it was Elgar's Third Symphony. Now I was well aware that Elgar had been commissioned by the BBC to write a third symphony but this was far from complete at the time of his death.

I know he had left copious notes and had also expressed the hope that no one else would "tinker" around with his work. Had I realised what I was listening to I would probably have been prejudiced and hypercritical but this I thoroughly enjoyed on its own merits and I certainly wish to hear it again.

Elgar's expressed wish is perfectly understandable if he intended completing it himself at a future date but that is out of the question. But would he have wanted to deprive the world of this wonderful music merely to enhance his own ego? Your recent revelation seems to suggest otherwise.

JOHN HINTON,

Worcester.