fy, the pianist, who
lives in the region about Sleepy Hollow.

To supplement his successful, humorously melodramatic setting of "The
Little Old Woman who Went to the Market her Eggs for to Sell," Kelley
is preparing a series of similar pieces called "Tales Retold for
Musical Children." It will include "Gulliver," "Aladdin," and "Beauty
and the Beast."

Kelley once wrote music for an adaptation of "Prometheus Bound," made
by the late George Parsons Lathrop for that ill-starred experiment,
the Theatre of Arts and Letters. The same thoroughness of research
that gave Kelley such a command of Chinese theories equipped him in
what knowledge we have of Greek and the other ancient music. He has
delivered a course of lectures on these subjects, and this learning
was put to good and public use in his share in the staging of the
novel "Ben Hur." His music had a vital part in carrying the play over
the thin ice of sacrilege; it was so reverent and so appealing that
the scrubwomen in the theatre were actually moved to tears during its
rehearsal, and it gave the scene of the miraculous cure of the lepers
a dignity that saved it from either ridicule or reproach.

In the first act there is a suggestion of the slow, soft march of a
caravan across the sand, the eleven-toned Greek and Egyptian scale
being used. In the tent of the Sheik, an old Arabian scale is
employed. In the elaborate ballets and revels in the "Grove of Daphne"
the use of Greek scales, Greek progressions (such as descending
parallel fourths long forbidden by the doctors of our era), a
trimetrical grouping of measures (instead of our customary fourfold
basis), and a suggestion of Hellenic instruments,--all this lore has
not robbed the scene in any sense of an irresistible brilliance and
spontaneity. The weaving of Arachne's web is pictured with especial
power. Greek traditions have, of course, been used only for
occasional impressionisms, and not as manacles. Elaborately colored
modern instrumentation and all the established devices from canon up
are employed. A piano transcription of part of the music is promised.
The "Song of Iras" has been published. It is full of home-sickness,
and the accompaniment (not used in the production) is a wonderwork of
color.

[Music:

Tottering above
In her highest noon
The enamoured moon blushes with love
While to listen
The red levin
With the rapid pleiads even
Which were seven
Pauses in heave