, while Schumann had
to wait some time longer; and it is only within a very recent period
that the peculiar value of Liszt as a writer for the piano-forte has
been recognized at all. On the other hand, it is evident that any
school able to attract to itself so large a percentage of the highly
gifted musicians of the different countries, who have afterward shown
themselves to possess creative talent of a high order, must have had
about it a quality at least unusual and commanding. Almost all the
composers who will be taken up have been educated in Germany, or by
teachers who were themselves educated in Germany. Almost the only
exceptions to this rule are probably the American, Gottschalk, and the
Frenchman, Saint-Saens. Accordingly, the marks of nationality and of
individuality in the music of the different composers are rarely
sufficient to prevent the works of any composer from being current in
any other country, and, from the mere sound of the works, in a great
majority of cases it would be difficult to tell whether they are German
or of some other nationality, so strongly does the German influence
pervade and underlie nearly the whole of this production.

The opportunity for expressing nationality in music, or, to say it
differently, the possibility of national coloring in music, is somewhat
narrow. It is only in the case of the nations which are distinctly
unmusical that it is entirely easy to recall their peculiarities, and
the features by means of which this is usually done amount to parody.
For example, when it is a question of something Turkish, much is made
of the tambourine, the cymbals, and the fife. In something Persian or
Arabic, the triangle cuts quite a figure; but when it is a question
between composers of the civilized countries of Europe, music has
become a cosmopolitan language among them all, and only a small number
of national traits are to be found distinguishing the production of one
country from that of another. It would be an interesting study to
trace these marks of nationality, but it would take us too far.
Suffice it to say that in general, taking German music as representing
the purest type of instrumental music, in which the musical idea as
such has full sway, the Russians differ from this mainly in their own
uncontrollable energy and a certain fondness for a semi-barbaric
display of over-coloration. The pigments with which they work and the
manner of treating their ideas are not ma