15 APRIL 1949, Page 30

Shorter Notices - Cesar Franck. By Norman Demuth. (Dennis Dobson.

12s. 6d.) IN his warm appreciation of Franck's best music and his champion- ship of even the admittedly unequal the author does a great service to a composer whom a school of French critics declare to have been the creation of his pupils. He is very much less successful in his attempt to explain Franck's character and its effect upon his work. The book is very colloquial in style and inspired by a general enthusiasm rather than the spirit of scholarship.