. Parker, and composition and instrumentation with
Dvorak. After teaching harmony for several years, he went to Boston,
where he now lives. His work has been almost altogether the
composition of songs. A notable feature of his numerous publications
is their agreeable diversion from the usual practice of composers,
which is to write lyrics of wide range and high pitch. Nearly all his
songs are written for the average voice.

His first opus contains a setting of "Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt,"
which I like better than the banal version Tschaikowski made of the
same words. The third opus contains three songs to Shelley's words.
They show something of the intellectual emotion of the poet. The first
work, "A Widow Bird Sate Mourning," is hardly lyrical; "My Coursers
Are Fed with the Lightning" is a stout piece of writing, but the
inspired highfalutin of the words would be trying upon one who arose
to sing the song before an audience. This, by the way, is a point
rarely considered by the unsuccessful composers, and the words which
the singer is expected to declare to an ordinary audience are
sometimes astounding. The third Shelley setting, "The World's
Wanderer," is more congenial to song.

Opus 5 is entitled "Songs without Tears." These are for a bass voice,
and by all odds the best of his songs. An appropriate setting is
Edmund Clarence Stedman's "Falstaff's Song," a noteworthy lyric of
toss-pot moralization on death. His song of "Joy" is exuberant with
spring gaiety, and some of his best manner is seen in his "Elegie,"
for violin and piano. He has also written a deal of church song.

A venerable and distinguished teacher and composer is James C.D.
Parker, who was born at Boston, in 1828, and graduated from Harvard in
1848. He at first studied law, but was soon turned to music, and
studied for three years in Europe under Richter, Plaidy, Hauptmann,
Moscheles, Rietz, and Becker. He graduated from the conservatory at
Leipzig, and returned to Boston in 1845.

His "Redemption Hymn" is one of his most important works, and was
produced in Boston by the Haendel and Haydn Society in 1877. He also
composed other works for orchestra and chorus, and many brilliant
piano compositions.

An interesting method of writing duets is that employed in the
"Children's Festival," by Charles Dennee. The pupil plays in some
places the primo, and in others the secondo, his part being written
very simply, while the part to be played by the teac