the sound and fury signifying nothing from the third concerto, and what is left? There was a day, perhaps, when such work served. But another has succeeded to it. And so M. Rachmaninoff comes amongst us like a very charming and amiable ghost. For that, however, let us not fail to be duly grateful. Let us not fail to give thanks for the fact that setting forever is the conception of music as an after-dinner cordial, a box of assorted bonbons, bric-a-brac, a titillation, a tepid bath, a performance that amuses and caresses and whiles away a half-hour, an enchantment for boarding-school misses, an opportunity for virtuosi to glorify themselves. One of the curious things about M. Rachmaninoff's season is the fact that it has not only brought him into prominence amongst us, but that it has brought into relief other composers through him. It has brought into relief the entire group of Russian musicians to which he belongs. It has evaluated the pretensions of the two conflicting schools of Russian music nicely. The school of which M. Rachmaninoff is perhaps the chief living representative, and which was represented at various times by Rubinstein and Tchaikowsky and Arensky, is usually dubbed "universal" by its partisans. It is supposed to have its traditions in general European music, and to be a continuation of the art of the romanticists, in particular of the art of Chopin and Schumann. But for the men of the opposing faction, the men who accepted only the Russian folk-song as their touchstone, and sought in their work to find a modern equivalent for it, the music of this school was alien and sophisticated, as sophisticated as the pseudo-French culture of the Petrograd drawing-rooms. For them, the music of Tchaikowsky, even, was the result of the manipulation of themes of Slavic color according to formulas abstracted from classical music. Without regard, however, for any question of musical theory; apart from all question of the value for us of the science of the classical masters, one finds oneself of this opinion. For the music brought forward by the visit of the composer who is at present in this country as envoy of his school, convinces us that the work of the men of his party, elegant and brilliant as it often is, is the work of men essentially unresponsive to the appeal of their compatriots. For them, as it is for every Russian musician, Russia was without their windows, appealing dumbly for expression of its wild, ungoverned energy, its misery, its rich and childish laughter, its deep, great Christianity. It wanted a music that would have the accents of its rude, large-hearted speech, and that would, like its speech, express its essential reactions, its consciousness. And some men there were, Moussorgsky and Borodin, who were quick enough of imagination to become the instruments of their folk and respond to its need. And so, when we would hear Russian speech, we go to them as we go to Dostoievsky and to Tolstoy.