nsport of fish and milk. I have not
heard the music, because unfortunately it has not yet been performed,
but I have read the programme, and nothing more stimulating can be
imagined than the final section, in which a terrific cannonade of
milk-cans is combined with a marvellous explosion of objurgation
from the fish-porters on strike. Yet if it were to be performed
_The Morning Post_ would probably dismiss it with a few polysyllabic
platitudes and _The Times_ affect ignorance of what it was all about!

In view of the misconceptions and misinterpretations to which serious
composers are subject, we are not surprised to hear that a society
has been formed for the purpose of giving "silent auditions" of modern
masterpieces. No orchestra nor any instrument will be employed, but
each member of the audience will be provided with a full score. The
first hour will be devoted to the study of the music; the audience
will then write down their impressions for half-an-hour; subsequently
the composer will expound his aims from the platform; and the price
of admission will be returned to the student whose impressions accord
most closely with the composer's "programme." In this way the cost of
concert-giving will be considerably reduced, and it is also hoped
that the consumption of sedative tablets, which has reached formidable
dimensions amongst frequenters of symphonic concerts, will be rendered
unnecessary.

Our only criticism of this admirable scheme is this--that the number
of amateurs who can read a modern full-score at sight is still
somewhat limited. The view that "heard melodies are sweet, but those
unheard are sweeter" might be quoted in support of "silent auditions"
were it not for the unfortunate fact that KEATS, who expressed it, is
now completely out of fashion with our emancipated Georgians. But
the broad fact remains that the forces of reaction are by no means
crushed. The Handel Festival has been revived at the Crystal Palace;
and Handel-worship is anathema to the Modernist, as redolent of
roast-beef, middle-class respectability and religious orthodoxy.
Only recently a brilliant writer compared his oratorios to
mothers'-meetings. The revival of these explosions of pietistic
jumbomania is indeed a sad set-back to those ardent reformers who seek
to elevate and purify public taste by the musical delineation of "the
degenerative frenzy of a Voodoo orgy."

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