He was first abused, then copied and imitated by wholesale in all countries; and to-day it is almost impossible to hear any composition in any department of music without discovering Wagnerian chords and tone-colours. The other opera composers of Germany were practically crushed by Wagner. In Paris, London, or New York, German opera to-day means Wagner opera. It should be added that Wagner's art called into being an entirely new kind of conductors-interpreters rather than timebeaters. Prominent among these were Liszt, Bülow, Richter, Levi, Mottl, Sucher, Schuch, Nikisch, Weingartner, and, in America, Theodore Thomas and Anton Seidl. It also created a new style of singers, among whom may be mentioned Materna, Brandt, Lehmann, Sucher, Malten, Schroeder-Devrient, Wilt, the Americans Nordica and Eames, Tichatschek, Schnorr, Niemann, Vogl, Alvary, Jean and Edouard de Reszké, Van Dyck, Betz, Fischer, Reichmann, Scaria, Kindermann, etc. If we add to these the names of singers famous in other schools of opera-Patti, Nilsson, Sembrich, Melba, Lucca, Trebelli, Sontag, Alboni, Viardot-Garica, Tietjens, Gerster, Malibran, Pasta, Rubini, Reeves, Tamberlik, Duprez, Mario, Capoul, Wachtel, Faure, Gura, Lablache, Tamburini, etc.,-we have a list of vocalists which no preceding century could begin to match.

The comic operas of Lortzing and Nicolai, being less concerned with Wagner's reforms, have retained considerable vogue in Germany. By the side of Wagnerian and other operas there has also been a fine crop of operettas, comic and romantic. Offenbach, Lecocq, Audran, Planquette, in France; Strauss and Milloecker in Austria; Gilbert and Sullivan in England; De Koven and Victor Herbert in America, are the most prominent names. In this branch alone has England done anything of importGilbert and Sullivan not only gave the world an abundance of wit and melody, but they obeyed the

ance.

Wagnerian rule that in a stage work the music and the poem should be of equal importance, neither being permitted to assert itself unduly over the others. To this they owed much of their remarkable success. As for Johann Strauss, he was not only the most inspired operetta composer of the century and one of its most fascinating melodists and orchestral colourists, but its

Waltz King." Dance music used to be, for the most part, slow as a stage-coach, because it was intended chiefly for the older folks. Modern dance music is electric and passionate, because it is written for young folks. It is music for the soul as well as the feet. The Strauss waltzes mirror the emotions of modern courtship and love.

In the realm of pianoforte music the nineteenth century again stands pre-eminent. Apart from Bach, who miraculously foreshadowed the modern romantic school, there is little in the eighteenth-century writings for this instrument that satisfies modern taste. The sonatas of Haydn and Mozart seem as small and empty in comparison with Beethoven's as their symphonies. In their wealth of musical thought and feeling Beethoven's sonatas are modern; but their form is antiquated. Paradoxical as it may seem, Beethoven was at once the greatest master of the sonata, and the man who sowed the seeds of its dissolution, as Shedlock has ably shown in his book on the pianoforte sonata. Schumann declared his belief, in 1839, that, while sonatas might continue to be written, "it seemed as if that form of composition had run its appointed course. Even the conservative Brahms, whom Schumann heralded as the musical Messiah, wrote sonatas only in his earliest period, after which he expressed himself in the shorter forms.

In this trend toward short pieces for the piano, Schubert again was the leading spirit. Others wrote short pieces before him, but he was the first who gave his best

in them. His Musical Moments and Impromptus were the forerunners of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words, and of the diverse short forms cultivated by Schumann, Chopin, and many others. This devotion to short forms is one of the main traits of musical romanticism. The fact that the romanticists neglected the traditional forms has led many commentators to the absurd conclusion that indifference to form as compared to content was the essence of romanticism. As a matter of fact, the romanticists neglect only the artificial and obsolete sonata form, not form as such. They allow their pieces to crystallise into diverse forms of their own which are more artistic than any sonata mosaic of the "classicists."

Besides this devotion to the short story," the most characteristic trait of the romantic school is the leaning toward an alliance with poetry, -as in the orchestral symphonic poem, which we find in most of the great writers from Schumann to MacDowell; Schubert and Chopin being, however, notable exceptions. But Chopin and Schubert were romanticists pure and simple, in that they made the expression of emotion their prime consideration. Chopin is the most idiomatic writer for the pianoforte, and as a harmonist and a revealer of the secrets of that instrument he stands almost as far above others as Wagner does in his own field. Great things, however, were still left to be accomplished by Liszt, Rubinstein, Paderewski, and others, on which the limitations of space make it impossible to dwell. It must be added, however, that the evolution of pianoforte music was dependent on the development of the instrument itself, which is a matter chiefly of the nineteenth century. Americans can revel in the proud thought that in this respect, at any rate, they lead the world. European experts admit that the best pianos and cabinet organs are made in America. American inventions are also the new semi-automatic instruments, which, by enabling anyone to play the most

difficult pieces correctly and with a considerable amount of expression, will, in combination with all the other agencies, do a great deal toward making us a more musical nation in the twentieth century than we have been in the past.

PROGRESS OF AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE

BY RUSSELL STURGIS

HE establishment on a firm basis of the present na

Ttional government is nearly contemporaneous with

the beginning of the nineteenth century, and before many years had elapsed the Federal buildings in Washington attracted the attention of historians. Congress met in Washington in November, 1800, as if with expressed determination to be in session there when the new century should begin. At that time, although the capital city had been for ten years decided on and its exact location determined, the only buildings which the Federal Government found ready for its use were a part of one wing of the Capitol and as yet incomplete buildings for the Treasury Department and War Department. The White House was not yet ready for its proposed use as a residence. Nor did these buildings make very great progress, and when they were burned by the British army in 1813 but little loss was suffered.

After the war with Great Britain, the Capitol was rebuilt rapidly, and completed in its original form, as many men now living remember it, with a low central dome and two still smaller domes over what were then the wings occupied by the Senate and the House of Representatives. The White House also was finished in its present form, although the completion of the portico lingered for a time. The "Octagon House," now occupied by the American Institute of Architects, is reputed to have been used by the President during the building