A newcomer among the Sunday afternoon radio programs, the half-hour of contemporary music sponsored over WHDH by the Longy School is a step, though a small one, toward satisfying a very conspicuous need in radio music. These concerts will present the works of present-day composers, most of whom are writing prolifically in the smaller forms. The plan is timely and, we think, indicative of increasing interest among performers and audiences in the somewhat neglected realm of chamber and salon music. Though this is a non-commercial program, it is definitely not an amateurish undertaking, as the performers are for the most part members of the Leagy School faculty.

Only two works were performed last Sunday--Five Pieces for violin and piano by Prokofieff, and Roussel's String Trio, Op. 58. The String Trio is one of Roussel's last compositions. Like all of his music it is marked by dissonant harmonic and contrapuntal effects. In spite of this, the first two movements have a lyrical lushness which will probably be considered saccharine in not so many years. The last movement is in a style which Roussel favored in his middle life. Dance-like and acridly dissonant, it has the same verve for which many passages in the Symphony in B Flat and Pour une Fcte de Printemps are so remarkable.

It is the ripping vigor and angularity of this type of movement which removes Roussel somewhat from the spirit of the traditional French school. His ruggedness does not fit in with the extreme subtlety and delicacy of composers like Debussy. Ravel, and even Honegger. The difference in style is not surprising when one considers Russell's musical background. Though he spent much of his life in Paris, he was not a member of the Conservatoire, where almost all French musicians of the first rank have received their training. He was drawn farther away from traditional lines by the exotic influence of the music of the East to which he was subjected in his youth.

Like all other composers Roussel has assimilated a number of outside influences, but so well have they been absorbed that in his mature works Roussel's style has an individual character which can be accounted for only by the inherent originality of his creative nature.