scherzo, his fugues, quartet, ballets, operas--he composed fifteen,
some of which are still popular in Russia--prove him a past master in
his technical medium; but the real engaging and fantastic personality
of the man evaporates in his academic work. He is at his top notch in
Sadko, with its depiction of both a calm and stormy sea; in Antar,
with its evocation of vast, immemorial deserts; in Scheherazade, and
its background of Bagdad and the fascinating atmosphere of the Arabian
Nights.

The initial Sunday in December, 1878, at Paris, was a memorable
afternoon for me. (I was then writing "special" stories to the
Philadelphia _Evening Bulletin_, and the rereading of my article in
print has refreshed my memory.) I heard for the first time the music
of Rimsky-Korsakof, also the name of Modeste Moussorgsky. The
symphonic poem, Sadko, was hissed and applauded at a Pasdeloup concert
in the Cirque d'Hiver, for the new music created, on the whole, a
disturbing impression. To quiet the rioting in the audience--it came
to shouts and fisticuffs--the conductor, Jacques Pasdeloup (whose real
name was Jacob Wolfgang) played Weber's Invitation to the Valse,
arranged by Berlioz, which tribute to a national composer--neglected
when alive, glorified after death--put the huge gathering of musical
"chauvinistes" into better humour. Sitting next to me and rather
amused, I fancy, because of my enthusiasm for Sadko, was a young
Russian, a student at the Sorbonne. He liked Rimsky-Korsakof and
understood the new music better than I, and explained to me that Sadko
was too French, too much Berlioz, not enough Tartar. I didn't, at the
time, take all this in, nor did I place much credence in his
declaration that Russia had a young man living in St. Petersburg, its
greatest composer, a truly national one, as national as Taras Boulba,
or Dead Souls. Moussorgsky was his name, and despite his impoverished
circumstances, or probably because of them, he was burning the candle
at both ends and in the middle. He had finished his masterpieces
before 1878. I was not particularly impressed and I never saw the
Russian student again though I often went to the Sorbonne. I was
therefore interested in 1896 when Pierre d'Alheim's monograph appeared
and I recalled the name of Moussorgsky, but it was only several
seasons ago and at Paris I heard for the first time both his operas.

In 1889 Rimsky-Korsakof directed two concerts of Russian music at the
Trocadero a