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NIELS W. GADE. EDVARD GRIEG.

SCANDINAA^AN COMPOSERS.

MUSIC is no doubt the most cosmopolitan of the Arts, but its freedom from the influence of geographical conditions is not so absolute that national characteristics do not enter largely into its history. A universal language may be the ideal for the various modes of imaginative expression, as truly as for the spoken and written symbols of ordinary speech, but in either case the final form must be the outcome of a process of development, in which every element of beauty or of strength has been gathered from all available sources, and embodied in the main current of progress. In this, as in other aspects of life, the assertion of national feeling may certainly be carried too far, until it narrows the vision and distorts the judgment; but the opposite danger is at present the more real, and any movement should be welcomed which tends to recognise the claims of different centres to independent activity. If the Celtic tongues should, through stress of circumstance, disappear from the face of the earth without leaving their due impress on the character of human speech in its ultimate form, there will be an undoubted loss to the race ; and, in the same way, if the range of musical expression should fail to include any distinctive phase of national inspiration, the resources of the art will be to that extent diminished. There is, indeed, in our day a growing sympathy with the aspirations of any people whose political fortune seems out of keeping with their intellectual and artistic capacity; but there is little fear that such sympathy will outrun the limits of moderation in influencing the course of events, and it is at present quite safe to encourage all signs of national initiative, in music or in anything else. It is noteworthy that the countries in which the recent national movement in music has been most marked are such as may be called politically unimportant. Poland, Hungary, Bohemia, Norway— and shall we add Scotland.' — have all produced worthy exponents of the popular genius for musical expression, which seems to have been treasured and fostered most where political feeling could no longer find an outlet in the strife of nations. The association of national music with striking features of natural scenery is another familiar fact, which may partly be referred to the greater opportunities of independence in mountainous countries, though it is also no doubt largely due to the stimulating influence of natural beauty on the imagination. Of all these favourable circumstances, the Scandinavian peoples have been granted a liberal share. They have a precious inheritance of folk-lore, embodying the traditions of a distant past; they have always dwelt in the inspiring surroundings either of fjord and fell, or of the never-resting sea (though, in most cases, this is more a tradition woven into the national history than an individual experience); and their comparative remoteness from the main currents of political warfare has turned the national life inwards upon itself The composers whose portraits we now reproduce, Hartmann, Gade, Grieg, and Svendsen, are in very different degrees exponents of what may be termed the Northern spirit in music ; but however they may stand apart in the extent in which they reflect national surroundings, they may well be