M. Arthur Pougin's Short History of Russian Musie has been
admirably translated by Mr. Lawrence Haward (Matto and Windus, 5s. net). The book is thoroughly well informed, and it covers a wider field than Mrs. Newmarch's work, which dealt only with opera. M. Pougin traces (very briefly, it should be remarked) the development of music in Russia from the folk-songs and early Church music down to Scryabin and Stravinsky. We have only noticed one error of fact— where M. Pougin gives as an example of the Westernization of Tchaikovsky the statement that "the action of The Queen of Spades takes place in France." Those who were fortunate enough to bear this opera in Kingsway last month will know that as a matter of fact the scene is laid in eighteenth-century Petersburg. As regards matters of taste, the most contro- versial point is the question of the relative merits of Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov. In M. Pougin's view, it is almost entirely owing to the revisions and improvements of the latter that Mussorgsky's works find a hearing to-day. But there are many people who disagree with this opinion, and who tend rather to regret that the strange genius of Mussorgsky should have been so often overlaid, and even vulgarized, by the banal efficiency of Rimsky-Korsakov's orchestration.
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