There are to be found in every picture gallery canvases attributed, not to any single painter, but to an atelier, to the school of some great master. One finds charming pieces among them. Nor are they invariably the work of pupils who painted under the direction of some famous man. Quite as often they are the handiwork of artists who appeared independent enough to their patrons and to themselves. Their names and their persons were familiar to those who ordered pictures from them. It is only that in the course of time their names have come to be forgotten. For there is in their canvases little trace of the substance that causes people to cherish an individuality, and makes a name to be remembered. Other personalities have transpired through their brush-strokes, and have made it evident that behind the man who held the brush in his hand there was another who directed the strokes--the man upon whom the artist had modeled himself, the personality he preferred to his own. It is this reflectiveness that has caused the attribution of the work to ateliers. And had M. Rachmaninoff instead of being a musician been a painter, would not a like destiny await his compositions? For do they not proceed from the point of departure of the entire brilliant school of piano-compositions? Are they not a sort of throwback to the salon school, the school of velocity, of effect, of whatever Rubinstein and Liszt could desire? Are not the piano-pieces of M. Rachmaninoff the result of a relationship to the instrument that is fast becoming outmoded? There was some slight justification for the pompous and empty work of his models. The concerti, the often flashy and tinselly pianoforte compositions of Liszt and Rubinstein were the immediate and surface result of that deeper sense of the instrument which arrived during the nineteenth century, and intoxicated folk with the piano timbres, and made them eager to hear its many voices in no matter how crude a form. A whole school of facile virtuosi arose in response to the demand. Since then, however, we have gotten a subtler sense of the instrument. We no longer require so insensitive a display. And together with those rather gross piano-works the piece _par excellence_ characteristic of the period, the brilliant piano-concerto with its prancing instrument embedded in the pomp and clangor and ululation of the band, has lost in favor steadily. The modern men no longer write concerti. When they introduce a pianoforte into the orchestra, they either, like Brahms, treat it as the premier instrument, and write symphonies, or, like Scriabine and Strawinsky, reduce it to the common level. But M. Rachmaninoff has not participated in this change of attitude. He is still content with music that toys with the pianoforte. And he writes concerti of the old type. He writes pieces full of the old astounding musical dislocation. Phrases of an apparent intensity and lyricism are negated by frivolous and tinkling passage-work. Take away