FIRST STRING
Regarding Mark Swed’s “You Can Tell the Fiddler by the Cover” (July 13):
No doubt, Leila Josefowicz’s “Bohemian Rhapsodies” does present a popular side of the violin repertoire, but not the “frothy” selections Swed wishes to epitomize by his emphasis on Sarasate’s “Carmen Fantasy.” Whether he cares for her performance of Ravel’s “Tzigane” or not, this music is not froth (nor is Chausson’s “Poeme,” even though he attempts to demean it as “popular romantic music”).
The fact that Swed takes great pains to paint a picture of Josefowicz as a purveyor of “pure teenage, bodice-ripping gothic-romance fantasy” serves more to classify him as an intellectually dishonest manipulator rather than as a solid, objective reviewer.
And Josefowicz hails not from Long Beach, as Swed wrote, but from Westlake Village, where her family moved from Toronto when she was 3 years old.
BERNARD KENTON
San Clemente
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