SPAIN AND MOROCCO. 12mo, $1.25. THE PACIFIC COAST SCENIC TOUR. Illustrated. 8vo, $2.50. CHOPIN, AND OTHER MUSICAL ESSAYS. 12mo, $1.50. WAGNER AND HIS WORKS. With Portraits. Two Volumes. Crown 8vo, $4.00....

Leipsic, the centre of the world's music trade, exports about one hundred thousand dollars' worth of music to America every year. I do not know how much of this sum is to be placed to the account of Chopin, but a leading music dealer in New York told me that he sold three times as many of Chopin's compositions as of any other romantic or classical composer. This seems to indicate that Chopin is popular. Nevertheless, I believe that what Liszt wrote in 1850, a year after the death of Chopin—that

Forty years ago Robert Schumann complained that the musical critics had so much to say about singers and players, while the composer was almost entirely ignored. To-day this reproach could hardly be made, for although vocalists still receive perhaps a disproportionate share of attention, compositions, new and old, are also discussed at great length in the press. Nevertheless, I believe that the vast majority of those who attend an operatic performance in New York, and are delighted with "Siegfri

Clara Schumann, the most gifted woman that has ever chosen music as a profession, and who, at the age of sixty-nine, still continues to be among the most fascinating of pianists, placed the musical world under additional obligations when she issued three years ago the collection of private letters, written by Schumann between the ages of eighteen and thirty (1827-40), partly to her, partly to his mother, and other relatives, friends, and business associates. She was prompted to this act not only

Although music in the complex harmonic form known to us is only a few centuries old, simple rhythmic melodies were sung, or played on various instruments, by all the ancient civilized nations, and are sung or played to-day by African and Australian savages who have never come into contact with civilization. And what is more, the remarkable influence which music has in arousing human emotions has been appreciated at all times. Tourists relate that in some of the inland countries of Africa, scarce

Why is it that most persons are more interested in vocal than in instrumental music? Obviously because, as Richard Wagner remarks, "the human voice is the oldest, the most genuine, and the most beautiful organ of music—the organ to which alone our music owes its existence." And not only is the sound or quality of the human voice more beautiful than that of any artificial instrument, but it is capable of greater variation. Although a good artist can produce various shades of tone on his instrumen

Perhaps it is not generally known that Mr. Theodore Thomas some years ago entertained the project of reviving German opera in New York, in a manner that should eclipse all previous operatic enterprises in this country. It was his intention to give in the leading American cities a series of performances of Wagner's Nibelung Tetralogy, and he looked forward to this as the crowning achievement of his busy life. For years he never gave a concert without having at least one Wagner selection on the pr