ALTHOUGH Dr. Pratt disclaims the intention, his encyclopaedia is practically
an abridgment of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, and it seems strange that Messrs. Macmillan, who are shortly bringing out an enlarged and up-to-date edition of Grove, should publish a condensation of the pre-War volumes. True, Dr. Pratt has drawn upon more recent editions of Riemann's Musik-Lexikon, but he has not wholly succeeded in his avowed object of providing a comprehensive guide to contemporary music. The dictionary is over-sympathetic towards obscure organists of the 1890's, and prone to dismissing composers of to-day with the epithet, " eccentric " ! One is amazed, too, at the editorial sense of proportion which can spread itself to a column over the virtues of Browning's Abt Vogler, and give a mere glance down the other end of the telescope at Stravinsky, who receives four arid sentences. Then, in his dubious affection for the moderns, Dr. Pratt relegates all music before 1700 to a short appendix, disregard- ing the revival of sixteenth-century music which has so greatly influenced many living composers. But, as one would expect, the Viennese and Romantic periods are quite soundly treated. For the rest, the dictionary is well and clearly arranged. Separate divisions are given to " forms and terms," biographies, and to a novel gazetteer of musical centres. People who do not possess Grove or Messrs. Dent's new Dictionary of Modern. Music will find the present work a solidly satisfying substitute
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