Sour Notes from Harvard

Music And Criticism edited by Richard F. French. Harvard. $3.00

This collection of the addresses delivered at the Harvard Symposium on Music Criticism owes its publication less to the achievement of the symposium than to the fanfare with which it was launched. This reviewer thought his time and spirit wasted in attending the meetings in May 1947, and indeed the general sentiment at Cambridge was that nothing had been accomplished. Well might the sorry affair have been forgotten. But no, institutions do not admit failure, and now in due course the poor fruits of a scanty harvest have been made available for more leisurely inspection. Perhaps this was not a mistake. Music and Criticism, as an eye opener, has its own grim lesson to teach.