At the Composers’ Union recently, Yuri Levitin played his oratorio The Sacred War to Moscow musicians. Levitin has been writing music for seven years, and has written many works of talent, inventiveness and good taste. He has tried his hand at several genres, not restricting himself to one narrow speciality. Levitin’s composition technique is beautifully developed, and he has mastered instrumentation, polyphony and form. His oratorio The Sacred War and his Second String Quartet are the most important of his recent compositions. / The theme of The Sacred War is immense and majestic, and naturally affects all artists. /… The quality of Levitin’s new work is not uniform: it has its shortcomings. But the joy which is aroused by the appearance of a talented new work deadens all desire to criticise. I would like to postpone the criticism it deserves until I have heard the works being played by an orchestra.