ABSTRACT
The 'musical left' smells decidedly musty. One thing is certain, Mavra has confirmed what Parade led to suspect, that there exists a 'pre-war critical attitude', but that there is not yet in evidence one that is capable of judging the music of the present. That is a pity, because the latest works of Igor Stravinsky, like those of Satie, are in sore need of intelligent commentators to persuade the public to accept them, and then to explain them. At the time of The Rite of Spring, the opinion of someone like Vuillermoz provided the standard. The same does not apply, since Vuillermoz has, for few years, consistently given proof that he and his colleagues belong to the past. Another critic finds 'the orchestration heavy and vulgar', as though the use of a wind band was not something deliberately chosen by the composer.
