THE MUSORGSKY READER

Professional musicians and serious students of music will find much of this material relevant and interesting as it throws light on an important and popular romantic composer. The book consists almost entirely of letters by and about Musorgsky, but there does emerge some sense of the musical milieu of the 19th century in Russia and of the circumstances surrounding the composition of his most important works. The editors have done a scholarly, definitive job, fully documented, but the net effect is too fearless for the general reader. They have missed an opportunity of amplifying other lives of Musorgsky by failing to set the Russian scene, of emergence from feudalism, of intensive social reforms, of fresh musical activity. Limited