ter or two he presents some interesting ideas, though clothed in a style which in no sense could be described as literature. His essay on Percy Grainger is really significant. Then he maunders through an attack on the critics, which is neither clearly thought nor clearly expressed, containing such gems of opinion as this: "All the same, it is a noteworthy fact that the great spiritual geniuses and adepts of the world have never condemned and denounced their fellow-creatures or the works of their fellow-creatures: and to take one sublime instance—Jesus of Nazareth," etc., etc., etc. Cyril Scott is not one of the great composers and I would not have lingered so long over his case were it not for the fact that he offers one of the most typical examples of the musician as writer.
William Wallace, the composer of Villon and other tone-poems for orchestra, has written a book called The Threshold of Music which, I have been assured, is a good book, but, although it has been lying around my garret within easy reach for at least two years, I have never been able to read it.[1] Edward MacDowell's lectures, delivered at Columbia University, collected in a volume entitled Critical and Historical Essays, might best be described by the convenient epithet piffle, pedantic piffle at that. It is only fair to
- ↑ Nor have I yet (1924)!
