it
is set. Behind the puny passions of man looms the vast presence of the
eternal forest, the mighty background against which the children of
earth fret their brief hour and pass into oblivion. The note which
echoes through the drama is struck in the opening scene--a tangled brake
deep in the heart of the great stillness, peopled by nymphs and fauns
whose voices float vaguely through the twilight. Every scene in the
drama is tinged with the same mysterious influence, until at the close
the spirit-voices chant their primeval hymn over the bodies of the
lovers in the gathering night. Miss Smyth's music has the same mastering
unity. The voice of the forest is the keynote of her score. Perhaps it
can hardly be said that she has altogether succeeded in translating
into music the remarkable conception which is the foundation of her
libretto. Had she done so, she might at once have taken her place by the
side of Wagner, the only composer of modern times who has handled a
philosophical idea of this kind in music with any notable success. But
her music has an individual strain of romance, which stamps her as a
composer of definite personality, while in the more dramatic scenes she
shows a fine grip of the principles of stage effect. Her latest work
'Strandrecht,' in English 'The Wreckers' (1906), was produced at
Leipzig, and shortly afterwards was given at Prague. It has not yet
found its way to London. The scene is laid in Cornwall in the eighteenth
century. The inhabitants of that wild coast, though fervent Methodists,
live by 'wrecking,' in which they are encouraged by their minister.
Thurza, the minister's faithless wife, alone protests against their
cruelty and hypocrisy, and persuades her lover, a young fisherman, to
light fires in order to warn mariners from the dangerous coast. The
treachery, as it seems to the rest of the villagers, of Thurza and her
lover is discovered, and after a rough-and-ready trial they are left in
a cavern close to the sea to be overwhelmed by the rising tide. Miss
Smyth's music is spoken of as strongly dramatic, and marked by a keen
sense of characterisation.

The operas of Mr. Isidore de Lara, a composer who, in spite of his name,
is said to be of English extraction, may conveniently be mentioned
here. It is generally understood that the production of these works at
Covent Garden was due to causes other than their musical value, but in
any case they do not call for detailed criticism. Mr. de L