Columbus," the libretto for which he has taken from Irving's
"Life of Columbus." It consists of six night-scenes,--"The Chapel of
St. George at Palos," "On the Deck of the _Santa Maria_," "The Vesper
Hymn," "Mutiny," "In Distant Andalusia," and "Land and Thanksgiving."
The opportunities here for Buck's skilful handling of choruses and his
dramatic feeling in solos are obvious, and the work has been
frequently used both in this country and in Germany with much success.
Buck, in fact, made the German libretto as well as the English, and
has written the words for many of his compositions. His largest work
was "The Light of Asia," composed in 1885 and based on Sir Edwin
Arnold's epic. It requires two and one-half hours for performance and
has met the usual success of Buck's music; it was produced in London
with such soloists as Nordica, Lloyd, and Santley. It has been
occasionally given here.

He has found the greater part of his texts in American poetry,
particularly in Lanier, Stedman, and Longfellow, whose "King Olaf's
Christmas" and "Nun of Nidaros" he has set to music, as well as his
"Golden Legend," which won a prize of one thousand dollars at the
Cincinnati Festival in a large competition. His work is analyzed very
fully in A.J. Goodrich' "Musical Analysis."

[Music:

High in the purer air,
High as the heart's desire,
In a passion of longing and fire,
A bird sings sweet and fair;
While a sunbeam, cheery and strong,
Answers the joy of the song,
And Spring, fair Spring is coming!

Copyright, 1893, by G. Schirmer.

FRAGMENT FROM "SPRING'S AWAKENING," BY MR. BUCK.]

Here, as in his symphonic overture to Scott's "Marmion," Buck has
adopted the Wagnerian idea of the _leit-motif_ as a vivid means of
distinguishing musically the various characters and their varying
emotions. His music is not markedly Wagnerian, however, in other
ways, but seems to show, back of his individuality, an assimilation of
the good old school of canon and fugue, with an Italian tendency to
the declamatory and well-rounded melodic period.

It might be wished that in his occasional secular songs Buck had
followed less in the steps of the Italian aria and the English ballad
and adopted more of the newer, nobler spirit of the _Lied_ as Schumann
and Franz represent it, and as many of our younger Americans have done
with thorough success and not a little of exaltation. Note for
instance the inadequacy of the old-st