single predominantly sombre tone and colour. The first is jagged, terse, concentrated. The second, which is built about two climaxes, the one small and tightly held, the other large and extended, melts with lights of mournful passionate reverie and little human cries. And the third dances as steel and skyscraping stone might dance could they break their forms and clap their hands and lift their tenoned feet; and after a sort of melisma, it is as though a new quality of light, like dayshine after warm oppressive night, had been washed over the instruments, for the music subsides into c-major and closes released in the broad diatonic mode. The instruments themselves are treated as becomes the form of the quintette. The four strings are usually made to play as a single enormous fiddle against the piano. Only in the second movement does the quality of the music become preponderantly gossamer-like, do the voices of the individual strings open out and speak against each other. There are two very noteworthy concerted passages sul ponticello.

The work received a very dignified performance at the hands of Harold Bauer and the Lenox String Quartet. Bloch stands in the world of to-day much as Johannes Brahms stood in that of forty years since: for we know that whatever in the future comes from him must of necessity bear the firm imprint of grave spirit and musical masterhood.

And the Strawinsky pieces brought life likewise. If the quintette resembles some elaborate fresco, the coloured convolutions of a Delacroix, say, the capricious melodic lines for the single reed are comparable to a drawing of Picasso's; for with entirely dissimilar means both complete a form, and stand comparable. Petroushka and the Sacre have both demonstrated the perfectness with which, with a single unsupported instrumental voice, a snaredrum or reed, Strawinsky can fill a space; and these delightful grotesques illustrate anew the man's most subtle cunning. Each of the little musical moments sustains its lyrical momentum, and yet not a note comes premeditated; even the reiterations of single notes come as startling surprises. So originally indeed are the tones and phrases spaced and rested that one has the thrill had long ago when the prestidigitator drew forth from an innocent silk tile first a pack of playing cards, then several Easter eggs, and finally a

frightened kicking rabbit. One had no sense the clarinet of Mr Sem Bellison could hold as many different sorts of ravishing toots and quirks. Forgotten entirely was the bore of the single unsupported instrument. It might have been a small orchestra playing. Nevertheless, the concert brought one the picture of a vessel which, intended for long courses and bulky cargoes, had been boarded by a party of landlubbers turned seamen, and was being driven about headlessly backward and forward over the ocean. The Bloch music and the Strawinsky by their quality served merely to aggravate the sense of an impulse compromised. For everything else which took place was off; and off not as events flowing from misjudgement or misfortune are, but as those which come from the admixture of an interest alien to the purpose in hand. One song with chamber orchestra would have given all one needed to know of Mr Arthur Bliss, for there are situations where 'tis folly to be wise; besides, Madam Noy had been chanted two years ago at the concerts of the International Composers' Guild, and nothing about the piece suggested that it ought to be given preference over other ballads by other living persons. But there had to be not only Madam Noy, but The Women of Yueh and Rout as well; and the general effect of the works was enhanced by the manners of Mr Bliss upon the platform before his little band, and by the externality of the soloist, Miss Lillian Gustavson. But if the mills of the gods ground slowly that night, they ground with their usual exquisiteness. The League had given Mr Bliss a mile; and Mr Bliss, to exhibit his appreciativeness, took two. Mr Bauer had demanded permission of the directors to repeat at the conclusion of the programme the quintette for the benefit of those who wished to familiarize themselves with the giant work, and had been refused with the excuse of want of space. But suddenly, at the conclusion of the performance of Rout, and after some perfunctory applause, to the surprise of the directors far more than of the audience, Mr Bliss reappeared on the platform with the soloist and orchestra, and commenced going through Rout again. After that, the evening was permitted to end as best it could. The last number was a vapid Divertissement for Piano and WoodWind by Albert Roussel; another step was taken backward, and another shovelful of heaviness thrown on the hearers. But had

the Roussel had even a grain of salt in it, the grain would have had not a chance of exhaling its pungence. That had been rendered impossible.

course.

It seems the concert was intended to end lightly. But there is one way only of bringing lightness. But people can't let life happen. They cannot feel it. They cannot let it take its inevitable One knows it more every day. The impulses prick up fresh from the ground. But then they meet human beings. They have to go through human beings to realize themselves. And before one has looked again, they lie bleeding on the ground, snapped somewhere in two.

PAUL ROSENFELD