It was in an interview given at the beginning of his recent American tour that M. Sergei Rachmaninoff styled himself a "musical evolutionist." The phrase, doubtless uttered half in jest, is scarcely nice. It is one of those terms that are so loose that they are well-nigh meaningless. Nevertheless, there was significance in M. Rachmaninoff's use of it. For he employed it as an apology for his work. His music is evidently wanting in boldness. On the whole it is cautious and traditional. Even those who are not professionally on the side of the musical anarchs find it somewhat unventuresome, too smooth and soft and elegantly elegiac, too dull. And in substituting for revolutionism a formula for musical progress less suggestive of violent change, more suggestive of a process like the tranquil, gradual and orderly unfolding of bud into blossom, was not M. Rachmaninoff very lightly and cleverly discrediting the apparently revolutionary work of certain of his fellows, and seeking to reveal a hitherto unsuspected solidity in his own? However, it is questionable whether he was successful, whether the implications of the phrase do quite manage to manoeuver his work into genuine importance. No doubt, music does not invariably reform itself through the process we call revolutionary. It is a commonplace that there have been many composers of primary rank who have originated no new syntax, no new system of chords and key-relationships. It is said that J. S. Bach himself did not invent a single harmony. There have been composers of genius who have done little to enlarge the physical boundaries of their art, have accepted the grammar of music from others, and have rounded an epoch instead of initiating a new one. Nevertheless, M. Rachmaninoff cannot quite be included in their company. There is as great a difference between him and composers of this somewhat conservative type as there is between him and the radical sort. For though the recomposition of music does not necessarily consist in the establishment of a new system, and can be fairly complete without it, it does consist in the impregnation of tone with new character and virtue.