Herbeck
secured him a grant of two hundred dollars. When Brahms replaced Herbeck
on the committee which reported upon artists' stipends, he fully
recognized Dvorak's ability, and not only encouraged him, but also
brought him before the world by securing him a publisher and commending
him to Joachim, who still further advanced his interests by securing
performances of his works in Germany and England. Since that time he has
risen rapidly, and is now recognized as one of the most promising of
living composers. Among his works which have been produced during the
past few years are the "Stabat Mater," the cantata "The Spectre's Bride,"
three operas in the Czechist dialect, three orchestral symphonies,
several Slavonic rhapsodies, overtures, violin and piano concertos, an
exceedingly beautiful sextet, and numerous songs.

The Spectre's Bride.

The legend of the Spectre's Bride is current in various forms among all
the Slavonic nations. The Russians, Servians, Slovaks, Lithuanians, and
Poles all have poems in which the ghostly ride of the spectre and the
maiden forms the theme. The German version, told by Buerger in his famous
ballad "Lenore," is best known; and Raff has given it a musical setting
in his Lenore Symphony. In general, the story is the same. The Spectre
comes for his Bride and she rides away with him through the night, amid
all manner of supernatural horrors, only to find at the end that she has
ridden to the grave with a skeleton. The Bohemian poem used by Dvorak is
that of Karel Jaromir Erben, a poet who obtained a national fame by
making collections of the songs and legends of his country during his
service as Secretary of the Royal Bohemian Museum and Keeper of the
Archives at Prague. In his version, unlike the German, the Spectre and
his Bride make their grewsome journey on foot. The _denouement_ in the
churchyard differs also, as the maiden is saved by an appeal to the
Virgin. In the opening scene she is represented gazing at a picture of
the Virgin, mourning the death of her parents and the absence of her
lover, who has failed to keep his promise to return. His parting words
were:--

"Sow flax, my love, I counsel thee,
And every day remember me.
Spin in the first year, spin with care,
Bleach in the next the fabric fair;
Then garments make, when the years are three,
And every day remember me.
Twine I that year a wreath for thee;
We two that year shall wedde