l and Franz Schubert.
He was deeply pervaded with the romance of the one and the emotional
feeling of the other. His work is characterized by genial humor, a rich
and warm imagination, wonderfully beautiful instrumentation, especially
in his accompaniments, the loftiest form of expression, and a rigid
adherence to the canons of art.

Paradise and the Peri.

Schumann's secular oratorio, "Paradise and the Peri," was written in
1843, and first performed at the Gewandhaus, Leipsic, December 4th of
that year, under the composer's own direction. Its first performance in
England was given June 23, 1856, with Madame Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt in
the part of the Peri, Sterndale Bennett conducting. The text is taken
from the second poem in Moore's "Lalla Rookh," and was suggested to
Schumann by his friend Emil Flechsig, who had translated the poem. This
was in 1841; but he did not set it to music until two years later. The
text required many changes, and these he made himself. The principal
additions are a chorus for "The Spirits of the Nile," the chorus of
Houris, the Peri's solo, "Banished," the quartet, "Peri, 'tis true," the
solo, "Sunken was the Golden Orb," and the final chorus. It has also been
suggested that he availed himself of still another translation, that of
Ollker's, as many of the changes agree with his text.

It is difficult to define the exact form of the work, though it is nearly
always classed as a secular oratorio, principally because of the
introduction of the narrator, after the style of the passion-music. In
other respects it resembles the cantata. Reissmann, in his Life of
Schumann, says on this point,--

"It seems right that he should have retained the most primitive form of
the oratorio, that of the passion-music. The poem has no genuinely
dramatic course; there was not the smallest intrinsic or extrinsic
reason to dramatize it more fully. Even with treatment such as that of
the 'Walpurgisnacht,' it must have lost much of its picturesque
development The only proper way to treat the subject, therefore, was to
retain the original epic form, and to introduce a narrator in the style
of antique oratorio, who should relate the facts in a few simple words
up to the point where they seem to demand a more dramatic setting."

Von Wasielewski also discusses the same point:

"The narrator is evidently copied from the evangelist in Bach's
passion-music; but b