They are never
narrow or provincial. They are the outpourings of a soul that is not
only intense in its activities, but is refined and cultivated in its
expressions. This effect is seen, too, in the poems Nevin chooses to
set to music,--they are almost without exception verses of literary
finish and value. His cosmopolitanism is also remarkable, his songs in
French, German, and Italian having no trace of Yankee accent and a
great fidelity to their several races.

In 1885, Hans von Buelow incorporated the best four pupils of his
friend, Klindworth, into an artist class, which he drilled personally.
Nevin was one of the honored four, and appeared at the unique public
_Zuhoeren_ of that year, devoted exclusively to the works of Brahms,
Liszt, and Raff. Among the forty or fifty studious listeners at these
recitals, Frau Cosima Wagner, the violinist Joachim, and many other
celebrities were frequently present.

Nevin returned to America in 1887, and took up his residence in
Boston, where he taught and played at occasional concerts.

Eighteen hundred and ninety-two found him in Paris, where he taught,
winning more pupils than here. He was especially happy in imparting to
singers the proper _Auffassung_ (grasp, interpretation, finish) of
songs, and coached many American and French artists for the operatic
stage. In 1893 the restless troubadour moved on to Berlin, where he
devoted himself so ardently to composition that his health collapsed,
and he was exiled a year to Algiers. The early months of 1895 he
spent in concert tours through this country. As Klindworth said of
him, "he has a touch that brings tears," and it is in interpretation
rather than in bravura that he excels. He plays with that unusual
combination of elegance and fervor that so individualizes his
composition.

Desirous of finding solitude and atmosphere for composition, he took
up his residence in Florence, where he composed his suite, "May in
Tuscany" (op. 21). The "Arlecchino" of this work has much
sprightliness, and shows the influence of Schumann, who made the
harlequin particularly his own; but there is none of Chopin's
nocturnity in the "Notturno," which presents the sussurus and the
moonlit, amorous company of "Boccaccio's Villa." The suite includes a
"Misericordia" depicting a midnight cortege along the Arno, and
modelled on Chopin's funeral march in structure with its hoarse dirge
and its rich cantilena. The best number of the suite is surely the