d but not
fettered. "Across the World" has been one of Mrs. Beach' most popular
songs; it is intense and singable. "My Star" is tender, and the
accompaniment is richly worked out on simple lines. Three Vocal Duets
are well-handled, but the long "Eilende Wolken" has a jerky recitative
of Haendelian _naivete_, to which the aria is a welcome relief. Her
sonata for piano and violin has been played here by Mr. Kneisel, and
in Berlin by Mme. Carreno and Carl Halir.

Besides these, Mrs. Beach has done not a little for the orchestra. Her
"Gaelic Symphony" is her largest work, and it has been often played by
the Boston Symphony, the Thomas, and other orchestras. It is
characterized by all her exuberant scholarship and unwearying energy.

[Illustration: MARGARET RUTHVEN LANG.]

Margaret Ruthven Lang, the daughter of B.J. Lang, is American by birth
and training. She was born in Boston, November 27, 1867. She has
written large works, such as three concert overtures, two of which
have been performed by the Thomas and the Boston Symphony Orchestras,
though none of them are published. Other unpublished works are a
cantata, two arias with orchestral accompaniment, and a rhapsody for
the piano. One rhapsody has been published, that in E minor; in spite
of its good details, it is curiously unsatisfying,--it seems all
prelude, interlude, and postlude, with the actual rhapsody
accidentally overlooked. A "Meditation" is bleak, with a strong, free
use of dissonance.

"The Jumblies" is a setting of Edward Lear's elusive nonsense, as full
of the flavor of subtile humor as its original. It is for male chorus,
with an accompaniment for two pianos, well individualized and erudite.
It is in her solo songs, however, that her best success is reaped.

When I say that Mrs. Beach' work is markedly virile, I do not mean it
as compliment unalloyed; when I find Miss Lang's work supremely
womanly, I would not deny it great strength, any more than I would
deny that quality to the sex of which Joan of Arc and Jael were not
uncharacteristic members.

Such a work as the "Maiden and the Butterfly" is as fragile and rich
as a butterfly's wing. "My Lady Jacqueminot" is exquisitely,
delicately passionate. "Eros" is frail, rare, ecstatic. "Ghosts" is
elfin and dainty as snowflakes. The "Spinning Song" is inexpressibly
sad, and such music as women best understand, and therefore ought to
make best. But womanliness equally marks "The Grief of Love," which is
i