the author.

One who wishes to know Mason should study some of the lighter aspects
of his productions; and first of these, since it is more nearly related
to what I have just now been mentioning, is the "Romance Etude" in G
minor. This is a pretty melody, often in thirds, in G minor, lying in
the convenient soprano range of the piano. Long runs cross this
melody, in Thalbergian manner, from one end of the keyboard to the
other, and at times the scale business gives place to charming
arpeggios, figures which transfer themselves from one hand to the
other. The scale is a curious minor scale with a sharp fourth, and is
therefore anything but inviting to the fingers at first. The effect of
the whole, when well played, is very charming, although it is more the
effect of a study than of a poem.

Still lighter in their characteristics are his charming and half-jocose
variations on the old French air, "Ah vous dirais-je maman," better
known in school circles of my time as "Haste thee, winter, haste away."
There is a very playful effect in these variations, and in the title
Mason calls them "Variations Grotesques"; but when he sent a copy to
Liszt, that amiable critic replied that the word "grotesque" had no
place in piano playing--that they should properly be called jocose, or
something of that sort.

Thoroughly interesting in every way is the remarkable series of duets
for teacher and pupil. Here are eight little nursery melodies which at
the time these variations were composed were among the best known in
this field, and the pupil, supposed to be a small child, plays them
generally with one hand alone, or with both hands in octaves, very
rarely in parts. The teacher, meanwhile, adds the harmonies, and
wonderfully interesting and highly diversified harmonies they are. And
in the same line with these are two other pieces which were originally
written for the Mason and Hoadley Method for beginners: a march in
which the pupil plays under the five fingers entirely, while the
teacher adds the most strange and diversified harmonies, and a waltz in
which the pupil still has nothing more than five-finger positions to
deal with. I consider these pieces superior to anything of this kind
that I have ever seen in point of cleverness and harmonic wit.

It would be a mistake, however, to dismiss the work of Dr. Mason with
these half-jocose illustrations of his genius. He has a very elegantly
written "Berceuse" which if very wel