I34 SEER, 84, I, 2006 back to Russian ecclesiasticsong and implicitlyportraysit as an expressionof national spirit. Finally, 'Sur la critique musicale russe' gives an overview of Russian music criticismparallelto the main three musicalphases. The essaysthat complete the collection have been appropriatelyselected to illustrateSuvchinskii'sopening up to variousmodernistmusicaldevelopments after the Second World War. 'Igor Strawinsky:la notion du temps et la musique', his most famous single piece of writing, explores the relationship between music and time through Suvchinskii'sfamous categories of 'ontological ' and 'psychological' time; Stravinskiiis for Suvchinskiian exponent of the former.The followingessaysaddressadditionalaestheticquestions:'Alban Berg, ou le pouvoir d'une rhetorique'tacklesthe relationshipbetween music and drama; 'Quatre paragraphes: Boulez et Rene Char' the relationship between music and words;finally, 'Oliver Messiaen' analyses the typology of this religiouscomposer. Throughout thisvolume Suvchinskiifiguresas an 'amateurphilosopher',to use Jacques Derrida's words (p. 63). Indeed, underneath the musicological surface a number of more broadly aesthetic concerns recur regarding, particularly,the natureof music,perception, the typologyof the artisticgenius (above all the Russian)and the foundationsof religiousart.Informednot only by philosophy (forinstance Henri Bergson), but also by ethnography (Andre Schaeffner) and the early-twentieth-centurystudy of Russian sacred music (Aleksandr Dmitrievich Kastal'skii), Suvchinskii's writings are clearly distantiated from the Stasov-inspired historiography and are articulated in a more scientificyet captivating style.The collection is an invaluable introduction to the ideas of Suvchinskii, whose impact on twentieth-century music remainsto be fullyassessed.This volume could be readwith profitnot only by students and scholars of Russian music, but also by those interested in the Russian emigrationand twentieth-centuryaesthetics. StAntony's College, Oxford KATERINA LEVIDOU Thomas, Adrian. PolishMusicsinceSzymanowski. Music in the 20th Century. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 2005. xxiv + 384 pp. Musical examples. Appendices. Notes. Select bibliography .Index. C6o.oo:$ioo.oo. UNLIKE Russia, with its towering figures of Shostakovich and Prokof'ev, Poland had no such musicalgiants in the earlyyears of the twentieth century. As Adrian Thomas points out, it was Karol Szymanowski, Poland's leading composer at the time, who encouraged a more progressiveattitude, often to hostile reception, at the same time urgingfor a Polishmusicalidentityremote fromthe influence of German music. He was almostunique in drawingon the native traditionsof Polish folk music and also became a vigorous reformerof musical higher education. Even so, other composers were active at the time. Roman Palester'sworksare singled out and compared to the neoclassicismof Stravinskii and Hindemith, while special consideration is given to J6zef Koffler who was influenced by dodecaphonic music. The young Panufnik studied in Vienna and surprisinglythe 'composer to whom [he] felt closest REVIEWS I35 was Webern' (p. iI). And it was about the time of Szymanowski'sdeath in I937 that the young Lutoslawskiwas making his musical voice heard, while Malawskiwas startinghis own compositional experimentswith dodecaphonic music. Thomas's surveyof this earlyperiod offersrareinsightsinto a musical life not yet batteredby the effectsof war and political strife. In spite of the devastating impact of the war years, Polish musical life miraculously continued, both in education and in concerts. Thomas draws attention to Regamey's Piano Quintet of 1944, which created a sensationand was regarded by Lutoslawskias there being 'nothing like it in the whole of Polish music chamber music' (p. 22). The countless stories of survival inevitablysit alongside storiesof those composerswho did not survive,such as Kofflerand the Padlewski,who promisedmuch, andwhose workshave mostly disappearedfrom concertprogrammes. In the post-waryears, composerswere forgingnew ways forward(Panufnik was the most notable example), establishinga new musicalindependence, and in the case of Lutoslawski,writing'themost cogently arguedPolishSymphony [hisFirst]of the post-wardecade' (p. 3I). This workwas subsequentlybanned, and Sokorski,then Deputy Ministerof Culture, upon hearingthe Symphony, reputedly said: 'a composer like Lutoslawskishould be thrown under a tram' (p. 49). At a composers'sconference in Lagow in I949 Socialist Realist issues were debated, Formalismdenounced and the West, especiallyAmerica, seen as the 'enemy of the new socialist order' (p. 44). Thomas's account of the conference provides a new authoritative assessment of this dark period and his own admiration for Zbigniew Turski's OympiaSymphony (I948) contrasts sharplywith thatof the officialcondemnation at thetime. So too, fascinatingly, doesJan Ekier'scaution atthe conferenceaboutmakingtoo hastyajudgement about Turski'swork. Soviet occupation and the demands of SocialistRealism ('reflecting greatness...