highest standpoint the only oratorio yet produced
in this country."

This oratorio, while containing much of the floridity and repetition
of Haendel at his worst, is also marked with the erudition and
largeness of Haendel at his best. The aria for St. Peter, "O God, My
God, Forsake Me Not," is especially fine.

A much-played symphonic poem is Paine's "The Tempest," which develops
musically the chief episodes of Shakespeare's play. He has also
written a valuable overture to "As You Like It;" he has set Keats'
"Realm of Fancy" exquisitely, and Milton's "Nativity." And he has
written a grand opera on a mediaeval theme to his own libretto. This is
a three-act work called "Azara;" the libretto has been published by
the Riverside Press, and is to be translated into German. This has not
yet been performed. Being, unfortunately, an American grand opera, it
takes very little acuteness of foresight to predict a long wait before
it is ever heard. In it Paine has shown himself more a romanticist
than a classicist, and the work is said to be full of modernity.

Paine wrote the music for Whittier's "Hymn," used to open the
Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia, and was fitly chosen to write
the Columbus March and Hymn for the opening ceremonies of the World's
Fair, at Chicago, October 21, 1892. This was given by several thousand
performers under the direction of Theodore Thomas.

A most original and interesting work is the chorus, "Phoebus, Arise."
It seems good to hark back for words to old William Drummond "of
Hawthornden." The exquisite flavor of long-since that marks the poetry
is conserved in the tune. While markedly original, it smacks agreeably
of the music of Harry Lawes, that nightingale of the seventeenth
century, whose fancies are too much neglected nowadays.

Paine's strong point is his climaxes, which are never timid, and are
often positively titanic, thrilling. The climax of this chorus is
notably superb, and the voices hold for two measures after the
orchestra finishes. The power of this effect can be easily imagined.
This work is marked, to an unusual extent, with a sensuousness of
color.

The year eighteen hundred eighty-one saw the first production of what
is generally considered Paine's most important composition, and by
some called the best work by an American,--his setting of the choruses
of the "Oedipus Tyrannos" of Sophokles. It was written for the
presentation by Harvard University, and has been sung, i