some of
the scenes being laid in Morocco.

In instrumentation, which is considered Page's forte, he has never
had any instruction further than his own reading and investigation. He
began to conduct in opera and concert early in life, and has had much
experience. He has also been active as a teacher in harmony and
orchestration.

An important phase of Page's writing has been incidental music for
plays, his greatest success having been achieved by the music for the
"Moonlight Blossom," a play based upon Japanese life and produced in
London in 1898. The overture was written entirely on actual Japanese
themes, including the national anthem of Japan. Page was three weeks
writing these twelve measures. He had a Japanese fiddle arranged with
a violin finger-board, but thanks to the highly characteristic
stubbornness of orchestral players, he was compelled to have this
part played by a mandolin. Two Japanese drums, a whistle used by a
Japanese shampooer, and a Japanese guitar were somehow permitted to
add their accent. The national air is used in augmentation later as
the bass for a Japanese song called "K Honen." The fidelity of the
music is proved by the fact that Sir Edwin Arnold's Japanese wife
recognized the various airs and was carried away by the national
anthem.

Although the play was not a success, the music was given a cordial
reception, and brought Page contracts for other work in England,
including a play of Indian life by Mrs. Flora Annie Steel.

Previously to the writing of the "Moonlight Blossom" music, Page had
arranged the incidental music for the same author's play, "The Cat
and the Cherub." Edgar S. Kelley's "Aladdin" music was the source from
which most of the incidental music was drawn; but Page added some
things of his own, among them being one of the most effective and
unexpected devices for producing a sense of horror and dread I have
ever listened to: simply the sounding at long intervals of two gruff
single tones in the extreme low register of the double basses and
bassoons. The grimness of this effect is indescribable.

An unnamed Oriental opera, and an opera called "Villiers," in which
old English color is employed (including a grotesque dance of the
clumsy Ironsides), show the cosmopolitan restlessness of Page's muse.
An appalling scheme of self-amusement is seen in his "Caprice," in
which a theme of eight measures' length is instrumented with almost
every contrapuntal device known, and with