The death last November of Manuel de Falla in the Argentine did not remove a figure who had been lately in the minds of musicians and music-lovers. Rather did it bring his picture back to their memories—the almost forgotten picture of a small, dried-up little man looking like some fanatical monk ready to go to the torture for an ideal, right or wrong. Almost forgotten: the man who twenty years ago was in the foreground as the most eminent living Spanish composer had long receded into a baffling obscurity. If he was mentioned at all, there were hints of some mystery or other. Some said his reason had gone, others that he had become a religious recluse, and some concluded from these rumours that there was some truth in both because these things may be interdependent.

It is odd to see the wrongdoer honourably acquitted while his victim is condemned, yet these are often the respective lots of performer and composer. Who has not sometimes looked forward to the playing of a rarely-heard work which he happens to love, only to be disappointed in the event by an inadequate performance? What he well knew to be a beautiful piece of music was exhibited as a mere conglomeration of sounds with little meaning, or none. Imagine the feelings of a composer as he listens to such a performance of his work! No wonder the blame is put on him whose music one is supposed to have heard. And the performer is often praised for his courage in an allegedly lost cause.… That it was lost because the performer did not really know what he was playing is seldom conjectured.

Britten's latest string quartet, No. 2 in C, Op. 36, was composed in “Homage to Henry Purcell.” It is in three movements. The first (Allegro calmo senza rigore), is in sonata form and elaborates three themes, while the other two—a Scherzo (Vivace) and a ‘Chacony ’ (Sostenuto)—are essentially monothematic.

Broadcasting in the United States is a business—and a very big one. Radio stations are privately owned and are operated for profit. Broadcasting is just as much a business as is running a theatre on Br adway or making a picture in Hollywood. The state and the government have nothing to do with it. To be sure, the Federal Communications Commission in Washington lays down certain rules of operations, and controls and allots wavelengths to the various networks and stations. But after the F.C.C. has given you a licence and a wavelength, and as long as you comply with their rules and conduct yourself accordingly, you can buy a piece of ground to-morrow, build a station and go into the radio business. And it is a good business to be in.

Sweden apart, Switzerland is, I think, the only country in which the continuity of European musical life was preserved during the recent war. This fortunate situation made it unnecessary to start afresh, as it was, for example, in Austria and Czechoslovakia, and has permitted Swiss music to continue its steady evolution on firmly established lines.

Three new piano concertos stand at the head of this list of recent first performances. The first was Vaughan Williams's old one, re-arranged for two pianos and orchestra for the Daily Herald's St. Cecilia's Day concert at the Albert Hall, and played by Phyllis Sellick and Cyril Smith under Sir Adrian Boult. I am at a disadvantage in having never heard the first version, which is infrequently performed, but was constantly struck by what seemed to me a disinclination to utilize all the resources. Of concerto and living two-piano writing there was too little, of antiphony and expanded one-piano writing too much. I doubt whether the considerable beauty of the work is sufficient to ensure it a place in the concert repertory.

Distance in time or space, it has been said, gilds formulas and styles; we turn to what is far away and ask for inspiration. By the light reflected from the past the artist endeavours to forge something new in harmony with his own period. Thus the great styles, always new and original, have in them at the same time something which we recognize as a common element. Style is not only the man himself but also his period. Style, therefore, is not merely an opinion but a fact.

The early repetition of new works of substance is all-important, if we are to come to grips with them. The BBC usually give us the opportunity of hearing the more interesting novelties at least once, but what they seem to lack is any guiding policy as to which works should be repeated, and which not, and the length of time that should elapse between one hearing and the next. Thus, Stravinsky's new Symphony No. 3 and Rubbra's 'cello Sonata have each had one performance to date, while the second performances of the new Bloch and Tippett Quartets were given only after an interval of many weeks. Contrariwise, Webern's last Cantata was heard twice in the same concert, while Bartók's third piano Concerto and Elizabeth Maconchy's fourth Quartet were repeated after intervals of, respectively, one and two days. It would require a more subtle intelligence than mine to discover any hint of system behind all this.

It is my opinion, frequently expressed, that good music cannot damage a film, but that not all films need or can stand up to good music. In an article written a short time ago for a leading trade journal I discussed the question of how far a really musical score could be of service to a film, under the title that heads this paragraph. There was not enough bass-drum-and-cymbals about this heading for the Editorial Department, who substituted a bit of blatant braggadocio that “roared and thundered in the index” with the exact blare that I later on deprecated in criticizing American ‘title music’

The first-night audience for Peter Grimes at La Scala, Milan, was not unprepared for Benjamin Britten's opera. Fragments had been performed at the Venice International Festival last September, to be followed by two complete radio performances from Rome under Fernando Previtali. Yet on March nth, as the curtain rose—the rebuilt auditorium victoriously obliterating memories of bomb-havoc in a symphony of white and gold—one sensed an atmosphere of keen curiosity concerning this rare phenomenon, an English opera.