THE history of English lyric poetry is both long and honourable. Its musical counterpart is, perhaps, not so easily discovered. After the golden age of the lutenists and Purcell and the promise of Arne's earlier songs, there followed a period of comparative stagnation for about a century and a half. Since the beginning of the present century, however, the quality of English song has definitely improved and to-day we may point to several native composers who could hold their own in almost any company. Among them is C. W. Orr. Born (1893) and educated at Cheltenham, he has spent his life in the Cotswolds. His early lessons in piano, harmony and counterpoint were never intended as the foundation of a musical career, and it was not until I917, after a year in the army, that he decided to take composition lessons under Orlando Morgan at the Guildhall School of Music. Unfortunately, the greater part of his life has been marred by indifferent health which, together with the fact that he composes slowly and fitfully, explains the comparative slenderness of his published output. The three most important influences in his musical life are notable. An early passion for German Lieder and in particular the songs of Wolf; his friendship with Delius; and a very thorough admiration for A. E. Housman's poetry. The first two are implicit in certain stylistic features of his work and the last is easily apparent in the fact that three-quarters of his published songs are settings of poems by Housman. His love of Housman's work is profound and sincere, and it is his fervent wish that he may leave "only one setting of which Wolf would not be ashamed ". I think he has already done so, and perhaps more than one. However, there are at least two very good reasons why Housman can never be a Morike for any British composer. Comparatively few settings of Morike existed before Wolf, and the poems, being mainly detached, have the virtue of independence and variety in subject and manner. Housman, on the other hand, has attracted all song-writers of real merit (and many others), and despite the undoubted variety of the poems themselves, there is a thread, silken