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Silver Spring." When he had arrived at this point it was necessary to provide a melody, and, as the melody had to fit the accompaniment, the melody was made last, and in this way he arrived at the seeming "impromptu" of "The Silver Spring." This is his own story to me many years ago, and it may have had a humorous exaggeration in it, not to be taken too seriously. I mention it because somewhere about the same time when Mason told it to me I had been talking with Dudley Buck one day, and we were speaking of Mason with very great admiration, especially for the elegance of his style as illustrated in some of his then recently composed works, such as his "Cradle Song," his two impromptus, "At Evening" and "In the Morning," his "Romance Etude" and the like, and Buck said, "If Mason ever had an inspiration it was in that beautiful melody in 'The Silver Spring.' I have arranged a church tune from it and my choir sings it with never failing delight. It will not do to undervalue Mason's gift for melody when he has produced a piece like that." With reference to the trend of piano playing in the direction of this interlocking work, there were several years when it looked as if the Haberbier suggestions would bear no fruit, but latterly in the Tschaikowsky concerto, to some extent, and in the Schytte concerto in C-sharp minor, to a very great extent, the interlocking principle is employed. One of the first of Mason's pieces which attained anything like persistent popularity was the "Danse Rustique," which, by the way, is one of the best finger studies for piano students in the fourth grade of which I have any knowledge. It is one of those pieces which can always be learned even by a pupil who is not very smart, provided he will practise it carefully and earnestly enough. It is a piece which can not be played well without very careful practice, and which, when well played, produces a good effect. Hence it has a remarkable pedagogic value if the teacher knows when to put it in and how to handle it when it is once there. While this piece makes no very important figure in the esthetic world, it is by no means a composition to be treated with disrespect. There is a great deal of energy in it and the second subject is very pleasing indeed, and the modulating work in the middle of the piece, where the elaboration would naturally stand in a serious work, is of considerable range and ingenuity, and thoroughly characteristic of
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