Orpheus in New Guises. By Erwin Stein. (Rockliff. 21s.) perspective.
These essays are for those already conversant with their subject, who wish to go over 'the familiar around with still another trusty guide.
Of the essays devoted to Britten two have appeared in the symposium- commentary on his works published in 1952. The final essay- ' Britten against his English background '—is new. Dr. Stein regards Britten as " not a musical thinker like Schonberg or a poet like Mahler, but the composer pure and simple, that is, a professional musician and craftsman-composer, whose archetype and ideal is Mozart." This division of composers into categories is an old game and not one that we should expect to find a musician of Dr. Stein's experience playing. Mozart, too, is the most dangerous of composers for the pigeon-holers—a pigeon, indeed, who is to be found at different times in very nearly every nest in the dovecot, Britten is said to have " a greater variety of means at his disposal than any composer had before him " because " he uses any device and any harmonic or melodic formula that suits his purpose. " But surely all composers have used what suited their purpose ; and if Dr. Stein really means anything by this, it can only be that Britten is simply an eclectic. However, this essay is interesting, as containing the reflections of an outside observer on our national music and ffistory as well as on Britten's place in both. "Gloriana is less austere than Billy Budd,—" he writes, "and as is fitting for an opera set in that period, rather of the glamorous type."
MARTIN COOPER
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