MUSICAL REVIEW LACKS MATURITY

If the current number of the Musical Review is at times lacking in maturity of style, this is nevertheless a characteristic which may be often observed in almost any undergraduate periodical in the country. The Review has, as a rule, kept free from it. But occasionally, as in two articles of the present number, even the Review, which is read by professional musicians over the country, shows a slight falling off in this respect. Nevertheless, the two longest articles are of great interest.

Mr. Burk contributes a new number in the series of articles on contemporary composers which the Review has been publishing--this time on the Finnish composer Sibelius. Mr. Burk shows knowledge and obvious sympathy with the music of Sibelius, who is, however, now appreciated as he should be--except, as Mr. Burk points out, in New York. While this article is at times marred by a few slight immaturities of style--such as the rather patronizing attempt to give the readers advice as to the appreciation of Sibelius--it is nevertheless interesting and distinctly worth while.

The other very long article, entitled "Criticism of Modern Art" by B. Preston Clark, Jr., shows that the athor has a wide knowledge of his subject. It is an attack on present methods of criticism of contemporary art--painting, poetry, and music--and Mr. Clark introduces concrete facts which do much to make his arguments convincing.

Mr. Damon's essay on Strindberg, Schonberg, and Sibelius is praisworthy as an attempt to relate the arts, and also to help the reader to appreciate two ultra-modern composers, both of whom deserve enthusiasm. But this method of treatment, although conventional, is so frankly subjective that it seems ultra fantastic and amateurish. It is nevertheless interesting to those who received impressions of the music totally different from those expressed by Mr. Damon here. It is stimulating in that it is entirely subjective; but one must always remember that it is Mr. Damon who is speaking and not Schonberg, Strindberg, or Sibelius.

The editorial criticizes the praise that is being heaped upon the seventeen-year old Austrian composer Korngold. All the American critics have been generous in their advice to young Korngold and his parents--not least of all the editor of the Review, who by a rather questionable analogy attempts to prove that premature adulation wrecks genius. While all this may be sometimes ture, there is little that can be done about it.

It is to be regretted that the editorial section is not larger--it consists in but this one comment. But the number as a whole is worthy of the Review, although it is by no means up to the highest standards which the magazine is capable of attaining. But it shows that the new Board is wholly alive and is keeping up the radical policy which is the raison d'etre of the Review. Only in future issues it should omit the phrases about the "sighing 'cellos' and other such commonplaces, not to mention the too frequent use of the first person singular. R. H. SESSIONS '15.