, organ, and fugue, and finally the _Prix de Rome_ in
1857, when he was nineteen years old. The latter kept him
in Rome until 1861, when he returned to Paris and gave piano
and harmony lessons and arranged dance music for brass bands,
a _metier_ not unknown to either Wagner or Raff.

Until 1872, Bizet wrote but small and unimportant works, such
as "The Pearl Fisher," "The Fair Maid of Perth," and several
vaudeville operettas, some of which he wrote to order and
anonymously. He married a daughter of Halevy, the composer,
and in 1871-72 served in the National Guard. His first
important work was the incidental music to Alphonse Daudet's
"L'Arlesienne" and finally his "Carmen" was given (but without
success), at the Opera Comique, in March, 1875. He died June 3,
1875.

Camille Saint-Saens was born in Paris, in 1835; he commenced
studying piano when only three years old. I believe it is
mostly through his piano concertos and his symphonic poems
that his name will live; for his operas have never attained
popularity, with perhaps the one exception of "Samson and
Delilah." His other operas are: "The Yellow Princess,"
"Proserpina," "Etienne Marcel," "Henry VIII," "Ascanio."

Jules Massenet was born in 1842, and at the age of twelve
became a pupil of Bezit at the Conservatoire, was rejected by
Bezit for want of talent, and afterward studied with Reber and
Thomas, and won the _Prix de Rome_ in 1863. Upon his return,
in 1866, he wrote a number of small orchestral works, including
two suites and several sacred dramas, "Marie Magdalen" and
"Eve and the Virgin," in which the general Meyerbeerian style
militated against any suggestion of religious feeling. His
first grand opera, "Le roi de Lahore," was given in 1881.
The second was "Herodiade," which was followed by "Manon,"
"The Cid," "Esclarmonde," "Le mage."

XVIII

OPERA (Continued)

One of the most disputed questions in modern music is that of
opera. Although we have many controversies as to what purely
instrumental or vocal music may do, the operatic art, if we
may call it so, always remains the same. In creating the music
drama, Wagner put forth a composite art, something which many
declare impossible, and as many others advocate as being the
most complete art form yet conceived. We are still in the
midst of the discussion, and a final verdict is therefore
as yet impossible. On one hand we have Wagner, and against
him we have the absolutists such as Brahms, t