istinctive among American
writers. The book called "The Black Riders" contains a number of
moods that are unique in their suggestiveness and originality. Being
without rime or meter, the lines oppose almost as many difficulties to
a musician as the works of Walt Whitman; and yet, as Alfred Bruneau
has set Zola's prose to music, so some brave American composer will
find inspiration abundant in the works of Walt Whitman and Emily
Dickinson.

[Music: III.

_WILLIAM SCHUYLER._

There was, before me,
Mile upon mile of snow, ice, burning sand.
And yet I could look beyond all this,
To a place of infinite beauty;
And I could see the loveliness of her
Who walked in the shade of the trees.
When I gazed,
All was lost
But this place of beauty and her
When I gazed,
And in my gazing, desired
Then came again
Mile upon mile,
Of snow, ice, burning sand, burning sand.

Words used by permission of Copeland and Day.

Copyright, 1897, by Wm. Schuyler.

FROM WM. SCHUYLER'S "BLACK RIDERS."]

Schuyler was born in St. Louis, May 4, 1855, and music has been his
livelihood. He is largely self-taught, and has composed some fifty
pieces for the piano, a hundred and fifty songs, a few works for
violin, viola, and 'cello, and two short trios.

In his setting of these lines of Crane's, Schuyler has attacked a
difficult problem in an ideal manner. To three of the short poems he
has given a sense of epic vastitude, and to two of them he has given a
tantalizing mysticism. The songs, which have been published privately,
should be reproduced for the wide circulation they deserve.

Another writer of small songs displaying unusual individuality is
George Clifford Vieh, who was born in St. Louis and studied there
under Victor Ehling. In 1889, he went to Vienna for three years,
studying under Bruckner, Robert Fuchs, and Dachs. He graduated with
the silver medal there, and returned to St. Louis, where he has since
lived as a teacher and pianist.

Alfred George Robyn is the most popular composer St. Louis has
developed. He was born in 1860, his father being William Robyn, who
organized the first symphonic orchestra west of Pittsburg. Robyn was a
youthful prodigy as a pianist; and, at the age of ten, he succeeded
his father as organist at St. John's Church, then equipped with the
best choir in the city. It was necessary for the pedals of the organ
to be raised to his feet. At the age of