First the gramophone ; then broadcasting ; and by this
time there must- be -many thousands of people,- having one kind of car and another, still unprovided with that minimum technique of understanding and appreciation • which. would enable them to cope with, and get satisfaction from, that Vast and indiscriminate deluge of musk which Bei% lapping-now on everything that was once mere town or country. To these (to journalists and novelists, also, who want to be sure of their facts and opinions) this compendium (Gollancz, 6s.) can be commended almost without reservation. It is divided into seven sections, for each of which a well-known critic, teacher or practitioner has been responsible : Mr. W. R. Anderson for The ABC of Music, Mr. Julius Harrison for The Orchestra and Orchestral Music, Professor Dent for Opera, Mr: Francis Toye and Mr. Dyncley Hussey for The Human Voice, Mr. Edwin Evans for Chamber Music (main terror for " the man in the street"), Mr. F. Bonavia for The Solo Instrument, and. Mr. -Eric Blom for a general eufture 'talk, An Essay on Performance. and Listening. The' critic cannot argue ; the • only sins arc inevitable sins. of -omission ; none of the con- tributors has allowed himself to be controversial—which does not- -mean- thirt-the-ljoOk.4i-titireadable,:-fof rattsieians are' notably a more articulate race than painters, and there are interesting unfamiliar suggestions, as, for instance, Professor Dent's, with regard to the effect of Wagner's crude notions of verse (and his Meyerbeerisch distribution of accent) in his early operas. At most, one might cavil politely at the vague- ness (our total knowledge is vague) of Mr. Anderson's study of origins, at Professor Dent's scant mention of Boris Godunov—surely the greatest opera outside Mozart and Wagner—or at the absence of serious notes on the ballet and of any attempt to assess the significance—for significance it has—of Harlem. But the conception as a whole is a grand one, worthily realized. And the imagination despairs of com- prehending how Mr. Gollancz produced such a handsome, bulky volume for six shillings. Let us. for his among other sakes, wish the book a good sale : the Home Counties, then, will soon be able to sing like Wales and the West Riding.
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