2 AUGUST 1930, Page 19

Mr. E. W. White has written the first detailed, critical

study in English of Stravinsky •s music in Stravinsky's Sacrifice to Apollo (Hogarth Press, Gs.). His was a formidable tusk, requiring, above all, a balanced judgment. This time author certainly has, for, although he is clearly pro-Stravinsky, he does not allow himself the luxury of uncritical adulation. He says—and it is true—that it is now possible to under- stand and appraise many of the works which at first seemed tentative. Ile places The Rite of Spring and Oedipus Rex as the peaks of Stravinsky's achievement and explains other works as being stages in the ascent to tiw one or time other. He thinks that the setting of the Mass which Stravinsky has

in • d will prove to be a third and even higher peak. In any ease, not until a third masterpiece has been produced shall we be able finally to judge the nature of StravinAy•s sacrifice.