In his presidential lecture to the English Association Mr. A. L. Rowse consoled his audience by the remark that if “writing is not at a high peak at the moment, English painting is enjoying a more creative period than it has since the eighteenth century, and English music than at any time since the Elizabethans.” I am not competent to discuss this optimistic view about English painting, but I certainly do not share Mr. Rowse's opinion of contemporary English music—and I take it that by “contemporary” he means music by composers not writing in a style or idiom of yesterday or the day before.