Sir, - Over the last few weeks people have sweated about Moore: did he reinterpret, rob or preserve Bunting? Did Moore save the music, or did it survive independently - or does none of the debate matter at all?
Isn't this issue about collection of tunes, and about arrangement - both of which are secondary to the process of composition? Hundreds of present-day musicians are registered with our copyright collection agency, IMRO, as being the owners of rights to thousands of tunes which they did not compose either. The bulk of this is for arrangement", this too being reinterpretation, etc.
Yet upon the basis of these players' (perfectly justifiable) royalty claims, IMRO (disputably) claims jurisdiction over almost all extant traditional music pieces; hence the ongoing row involving "session" players and the publicans. Perhaps the reality of this divisive conundrum should prompt the expansion of the Moore debate to modern relevance? - Yours, etc,
Dublin 6.