Hugo Kaun, an American resident of Berlin, has been a prodigious producer, his work being in keeping with the modern German musical scheme. He has much structural power, a fertile imagination, and a considerable sense of beauty. His chief works are three symphonies, a piano concerto, a violin concerto, aFantasiestückfor violin, eight chamber music works, five symphonic poems, and an enormous quantity of songs, the best known, perhaps, being 'My Native Land,' and many short piano pieces. He has also written two oratorios, the most important being 'Mother Earth.'
Paul Allen, of Boston, has lived chiefly in Italy, where, as one would expect, he has produced operas. Two of these are 'The Philtre' and 'Milda,' each in one act. They follow the modern Italian operatic scheme and show the composer's close sympathy with the spirit of modern Italian stage music. He has written extensively for the piano also, among his writings in this form being anAlla Tarantella, an excellent and refined little work, sensitive to the genius of Italian folk-music, and a 'Meditation' having remarkable depth of feeling, a work emerging from a real emotion and expressed in unusually beautiful terms.
Kurt Schindler, of German birth, and latterly a resident of New York, has put out about twenty-five songs possessing charm and simplicity, though not of a very strong modernity. One of the best, and a work of true beauty, is the 'Faery Song' on Keats' poem. 'Adoration' is another of the Keats group, and in anothergroup the composer has set poems of Wilde, Swinburne, and—a strange third to companion such a pair—Meredith. He has also 'Five Folk-Song Paraphrases,' the originals drawn from Italy, Russia, and France.
Platon Brounoff, a Russian living in New York, has composed, among other works, an overture, 'Russia,' which has been performed at the Central Park concerts under Arnold Volpe's direction, and a characteristic piano suite, 'In the Village.'
TheSuite Fantastiquefor piano and orchestra by the pianist Ernest Schelling has been heard in New York. It is a clever and brilliant work, and makes ingenious use of 'Yankee Doodle,' 'Dixie,' and the 'Swanee River.'
Arthur Fickenscher, at present living in Berlin, has developed a highly refined and highly modernized art of which more is likely to be heard later. One of his most important works is a setting of Rossetti's 'Willowwood' for chorus and orchestra.
A. F.