The greatest difficulty confronting a musie critic is that week after week and concert after concert he must listen to everything that. is played whether or not he wants to. For the normal listener there is always a choice: if the programme is not to his liking then he can stay away. But the critic must attend and, instead of allowing his prejudices their normal expression, he is supposed to pronounce with an objective attitude on works that he would not cross the street to hear. Actually it is far more than this. for in music the critical faculties.|can be brought to bear easily on works that are familiar and pleasing. while with that which is disliked there comes boredom and an inability to be completely objective.
Last Sunday's concert at the Lyceum contained two works new to me and one that was very famil-lar. "La Peri" was written as a ballet which! probably explains its lack of conviction. Unconvincing it was and more than aimless. The libretto as given in the notes seemed whimsical nonsense.. Perhaps with choreography and décor the music might indicate an intelligible whole, but as a concert piece it was unworthy of inclusion in any pro-including a Life" at 350 p.m.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.