both the piano and
orchestral scores of this work (op. 15), and have seen much beauty in
them, my space compels me to refer the curious reader to either of
these most recommendable books.

Gleason has had an unusual schooling. He was born in Middletown,
Conn., in 1848. His parents were musical, and when at sixteen he wrote
a small matter of two oratorios without previous instruction, they put
him to study under Dudley Buck. From his tuition he graduated to
Germany, and to such teachers as Moscheles, Richter, Plaidy, Lobe,
Raif, Taussig, and Weitzmann. He studied in England after that, and
returned again to Germany. When he re-appeared in America he remained
a while at Hartford, Conn., whence he went to Chicago in 1876. He has
lived there since, working at teaching and composition, and acting as
musical critic of the Chicago _Tribune_. An unusually gifted body of
critics, dramatic, musical, and literary, has worked upon the Chicago
newspapers, and Gleason has been prominent among them.

Among other important compositions of his are a symphonic cantata,
"The Auditorium Festival Ode," sung at the dedication of the Chicago
Auditorium by a chorus of five hundred; sketches for orchestra, a
piano concerto, organ music, and songs.

As is shown by the two or three vocal works of his that I have seen,
Gleason is less successful as a melodist than as a harmonist. But in
this latter capacity he is gifted indeed, and is peculiarly fitted to
furnish forth with music Ebling's "Lobgesang auf die Harmonie." In his
setting of this poem he has used a soprano and a barytone solo with male
chorus and orchestra. The harmonic structure throughout is superb in all
the various virtues ascribed to harmony. The ending is magnificent.

[Illustration: WILLIAM H. SHERWOOD.]

A work completed December, 1899, for production by the Thomas
Orchestra, is a symphonic poem called "The Song of Life," with this
motto from Swinburne:

"They have the night, who had, like us, the day;
We whom the day binds shall have night as they;
We, from the fetters of the light unbound,
Healed of our wound of living, shall sleep sound."

The first prominent musician to give a certain portion of his program
regularly to the American composer, was William H. Sherwood. This
recognition from so distinguished a performer could not but interest
many who had previously turned a deaf ear to all the musical efforts
of the Eagle. In addition to playing their