Orchestras’ now very public tune

I was shocked and outraged at the insinuation that I have used conductor Christoph Eschenbach, the current conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, as “inspiration” in my current novel, “His Secret Little Wife” [“Critic’s Notebook: A Classic Coup,” Jan. 21].

The book is pure fiction. I have never seen or even heard of conductor Eschenbach, nor have I ever seen even a picture of him. The house described in the book that Mark Swed presumes is “too humiliatingly close to Eschenbach’s for comfort” is the house where I and my family have lived, nor was I aware of any dissension in Philadelphia concerning the orchestra and the conductor since we haven’t been living in Philadelphia for many years.

These irresponsible remarks are appalling. There is nothing to substantiate one thing that was written by Swed in connection to my novel, making these assumptions not only insulting but completely destructive to me and to my work.

FREDRICA WAGMAN

New York

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MARK SWED says that orchestra musicians wield significant power, then recounts situations -- in Baltimore and Philadelphia -- in which the orchestra’s musicians had no power and were granted limited influence.

The Seattle Symphony’s internal tensions, publicly aired by Seattle’s major newspapers, must be viewed circumspectly. It appears that those papers’ writers set aside standards of reporting and criticism in favor of sensationalism and the pursuit of other agendas. Swed’s reaction is fair enough: Seattle’s players leaking information to the press were behaving badly. But there is a ready market for such commerce. There will always be orchestra players with a need to have the local writers’ ears, and it is a rare writer who declines to enable such neediness.

DAVID GARRETT

Tujunga

Garrett is a cellist with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.