I notice from a perusal of the Proms Board that the Hallé's programme (July 27th) has been altered and that instead of Britten's Our Hunting Fathers with Lisa Milne, it's now Les Illuminations with Joan Rogers.

Rather a pity: nothing against the estimable Miss Rogers, but the replacement song-cycle turns up rather frequently, whilst the lost one is rather rarer. If it is a case of the original singer being unavailable, what a pity they were unable to engage the services of Robert Murray, the young tenor who learnt the work at extremely short notice when a similar indisposition occured at Aldeburgh last year, and acquitted himself with such distinction.

I got to know it in an off-air recording with a young Heather Harper, tinners, long before either of her recorded 'live' versions were made. I still prefer a soprano in it. Indeed, preferably her.

Britten spent much of his life being rather conservative, but in OHF you can hear the young man revelling in his extraordinary facility and daring to be different; it's amazing orchestration, and the vocal lines (pre Pears) have a character and angularity markedly different to those which became shaped by his life-partner's vocal strengths and weaknesses.