Mendelssohn also set two Greek tragedies to music, Sophokles' "Oedipus in Kolonos" and his "Antigone." Mendelssohn is reported to have made a first attempt at writing Grecian music, or what we suppose it to be, mainly a matter of unison and meagre instrumentation. He was soon dissuaded from such a step, however, and wisely. The Greek tragedians, really writers of grand opera, made undoubted use of the best musical implements and knowledge they had. Creative emotion has its prosperity in the minds of its audience, not in the accuracy of its mechanism. To secure the effect on us that the Greek tragedians produced on contemporary audiences, it is necessary that our music be a sublimation along the lines we are accustomed to, as theirs was along lines familiar to them and effective with them. Otherwise, instead of being moved by the miseries of Oedipus, we should be chiefly occupied with amusement at the oddity of the music, and soon bored unendurably by its monotony and thinness. Mendelssohn decided then to use unison frequently for suggestion's sake, but not to carry it to a fault. His experiments along these lines have been of evident advantage to Paine, who has, however, kept strictly to his own individuality, and produced a work that, at its highest, reaches a higher plane, in my opinion, than anything in Mendelssohn's noble tragedies,--and I am not, at that, one of those that affect to look down upon the achievements of the genius that built "Elijah." Paine's prelude is an immense piece of work, in every way larger and more elaborate than that to Mendelssohn's "Antigone" (the "Oedipus in Kolonos" begins strongly with only one period of thirteen measures). The opening chorus of Paine's "Oedipus" is the weakest thing in the work. The second strophe has a few good moments, but soon falls back into what is impudent enough to be actually catchy!--and that, too, of a Lowell Mason, Moody and Sankey catchiness. Curiously enough, Mendelssohn's "Antigone" begins with a chorus more like a drinking-song than anything else, and the first solo is pure _Volkslied_; both of them imbued with a Teutonic flavor that could be cut with a knife. In Mendelssohn's "Oedipus in Kolonos," however, the music expresses emotion rather than German emotion, and abounds in splendors of harmony that are strikingly Wagnerian--in advance. [Music: Copyright, 1895, by Arthur P. Schmidt. POSTLUDE TO "OEDIPUS TYRANNUS," BY J.K. PAINE.] Paine's second chorus describes the imaginary pursuit by Fate of the murderer of King Laius. It is full of grim fire, and the second strophe is at first simply terrible with awe. Then it degenerates somewhat into an arioso, almost Italian. The fourth chorus defends the oracles from Jocasta's incredulity. It is written almost in march measure, and is full of robor.