THE HUNGARIAN AND I

In his account of the Independent Composers Assn. concert of Hungarian electronic music (Music Reviews, Oct. 28), Gregg Wager writes:

” Ludi Spaziali,’ for tape and piano, synchronizes a wash of electronically altered piano sounds with the playing of an onstage pianist who looks like a curious caricature of Bartok.”

Said pianist, being myself, utterly fails to see the likeness. I dare say Philip of Spain and I bear closer resemblance than Bartok and I.

In fact, it’s OK with me if Wager thinks I look like Bartok. However, I do object to his total inattention to the live performances with tape on the concert. Performers were not even named in Wager’s review, and this I find irresponsible.

For the record, then, the performers in addition to myself were Cathy Wong on soprano sax in Zoltan Pongrancz’s “Concertino,” and a percussion quartet consisting of Jeff Brenner, Scott Fry, Ron George and Sharon Schroeder in Patachich’s “Woolemesyn,” conducted by Richard Babcock.

GLORIA CHENG

Los Angeles

Wag er is blameless. His original line--that the onstage pianist “ plays a curious caricature of Bartok” was changed during the editing process; as for the second complaint, space limitations in capsule reviews preclude the mentioning of every participant.