It is my great misfortune never to have heard one of Beck's works performed, but, judging from a fragment of a deliciously dreamy moonlight scene from his unfinished music drama, "Salammbo," which he kindly sent me, and from the enthusiasm of the severest critics, he must be granted a most unusual poetic gift, solidity and whimsicality, and a hardly excelled erudition. His orchestration shows a hand lavish with color and cunning in novel effects. Several of his works have been performed with great applause in Germany, where Beck spent many years in study. He was born at Cleveland, in 1856, and is a graduate of the Leipzig Conservatorium. In art, quality is everything; quantity is only a secondary consideration. It is on account of the quality of his work that James H. Rogers must be placed among the very best of modern song-writers, though his published works are not many. When one considers his tuition, it is small wonder that his music should show the finish of long mastery. Born in 1857, at Fair Haven, Conn., he took up the study of the piano at the age of twelve, and at eighteen was in Berlin, studying there for more than two years with Loeschorn, Rohde, Haupt, and Ehrlich, and then in Paris for two years under Guilmant, Fissot, and Widor. Since then he has been in Cleveland as organist, concert pianist, and teacher. [Illustration: Autograph of James H. Rogers] His songs are written usually in a characteristic form of dramatic, yet lyric recitative. His "Album of Five Songs" contains notable examples of this style, particularly the "Good-Night," "Come to Me in My Dreams," and the supremely tragic climax of "Jealousy." The song, "Evening," with its bell-like accompaniment, is more purely lyric, like the enchanting "At Parting," which was too delicately and fragrantly perfect to escape the wide popularity it has had. His "Declaration" is ravishingly exquisite, and offers a strange contrast to the "Requiescat," which is a dirge of the utmost largeness and grandeur. His graceful "Fly, White Butterflies," and "In Harbor," and the dramatic setting of "The Loreley," the jovial "Gather Ye Rosebuds" of jaunty Rob Herrick, the foppish tragedy of "La Vie est Vaine" (in which the composer's French prosody is a whit askew), that gallant, sweet song, "My True Love Hath My Heart," and a gracious setting of Heine's flower-song, are all noteworthy lyrics. He has set some of Tolstoi's words to music, the sinister love of "Doubt Not, O Friend," and the hurry and glow of "The First Spring Days," making unusually powerful songs. In the "Look Off, Dear Love," he did not catch up with Lanier's great lyric, but he handled his material most effectively in Aldrich' "Song from the Persian," with its Oriental wail followed by a martial joy. The high verve that marks his work lifts his "Sing, O Heavens," out of the rut of Christmas anthems.