When, during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the English musical tradition gradually declined, fundamentally for social and economic reasons, one of the symptoms of decay was our failure to absorb the significant trends of contemporary musical evolution. It is for instance pertinent that although Haydn and Mozart were frequently played in London in the first half of the nineteenth century they exerted virtually no influence on our contemporary composers, who were unable to assimilate the implications of their sonata idiom. The great social-dramatic phase of instrumental evolution we simply by-passed, so that it's hardly surprising that when Holst and Vaughan Williams should have come to work towards the renaissance of our musical culture they should have returned to the great days—to Tudor polyphony and, behind that, folk-song and hence to a fundamentally vocal conception of their art. (The unique case of Elgar, whose magnificently ripe symphonics are as it were the culmination of a symphonic tradition that had never happened, we may legitimately regard as a ‘sport’ in our musical history.)

Russian music is getting more and more popular nowadays: works of hitherto unknown Russian composers emerge each season and are performed at our concerts beside the older standard works. The works themselves are, or at least should be, of course, the thing that matters most in this connection, and not the names or personalities of the authors. Many of us enjoy the sight of old cathedrals, and find delight in pictures or poems of anonymous painters and poets without bothering to know who the architects or authors were. One wonders if it would not be preferable—though not to some of the professional critics—to have musical works performed without indicating the names of their composers. However this may be, the general usage requires the mentioning of the composer, and this for many reasons. As long as this usage is observed, it is perhaps no pedantry to insist upon a correct and consistent spelling of the composers' names. While this requirement is pretty well satisfied in general, this is by no means the case with the names of Russian composers. Let us quote some examples.

Non multa, sed multum. How happy I would be, could this saying be applied here!” With these words, Anton Webern dedicated the score of his Op. 9, the six Bagatelles for string quartet, to his friend Alban Berg. Each of these pieces, though lasting only a few seconds, contains a truly remarkable wealth of musical expression. But this old Latin adage may also very suitably be applied to the whole of Webern's work. The published list commences with a large composition for orchestra, the Passacaglia Op. 1 (1908), written after a long and strict study with Arnold Schönberg. It shows the twenty-five-year-old composer in complete command of all the traditional means of his art. Even this work, clearly influenced by Brahms's late style, betrays a peculiar originality, wrestling for its own means of expression in its melodic invention and its endeavour to expand tonality to the uttermost. Also the next work, a double Canon for mixed choir a cappella to words by Stefan George, strives for a certain conciliation between conventional ways of writing and the new presentation of a clearly conceived tone-world. The early tendency to marshal and arrange even the boldest and freest musical thoughts by orthodox musical form-laws (passacaglia, canon), remains characteristic also of Webern's latest compositions.

Next July will bring the first production of Benjamin Britten's second opera, ‘The Rape of Lucretia,’ to a libretto by Ronald Duncan. This will be a full-length opera in two acts. It will be presented for a short festival season at the Glyndebourne Opera House, after which it will be performed in various provincial cities, perhaps later in London and, it is hoped, on the Continent.

It can fairly be said that cultural life in Germany, especially where music is concerned, has recovered out of all proportion to material conditions prevailing in the ravaged country. How is it possible, one might ask, for two opera houses to be playing several times a week to packed houses, in the ruins of Berlin? It is interesting to find that the general apathy which is apparent to a greater or lesser degree among the population of all the large towns of Germany has neither prevented the performance of music nor detracted from its enjoyment by the music-loving public.

With the end of the war the already existing boom in music in the United States has grown still larger. Opera, ballet, symphony concerts, recitals, radio music, and now even musical films are attracting audiences on a scale hitherto unknown. ‘Sold Out’ is a commonplace at the auditoriums, and fees for artists are higher than ever. Such is the season 1945–46. It may be attributed to various causes: relief from war anxiety, returning soldiers, the influence of radio. All of these are important factors, but increased spending power is perhaps the biggest. The public have money to spend—savings, perhaps—and although much of it is going into light entertainment, there is also a remarkable flow in the direction of serious music.