The Music Masters, Vol IV. By A. L. Bacha- rach.
(Cassell. 25s.)
THIS is the last volume of the series and con- tains fifty-four short biographies of compo- sers born since 1860. Britten is the youngea inclusion but twenty-seven of the composers are liking. This imposes a severe restriction on a book concerned with biography rather than music; and the fact that the large majority of the composers concerned, if not alive, are only recently dead makes this perhaps the least objective of the four volumes of the series. The interest of com- posers' lives seems apt, in any case, to vary in inverse proportion to the interest of their music; and the best essays arc those in which a certain amount of music Criticism has crept in, at least by implication. The general level of writing is respectable and isolated essays are much more than that. Ralph Wood's Schonberg, for instance, is both objective and interesting and Colin Mason's Bartok fills in gaps which until recently have remained in most music-lovers' know- ledge. Some contributors had hopeless tasks and nothing but the aim of a spurious com- pleteness really justifies the inclusion of Jarnefelt, Palmgren, Shaporin or Suk, more especially since Webern and Mcdtner are absent from the list.
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