Dr. Damrosch was also a pioneer in introducing Wagner to us. Two years after the Metropolitan Opera House was built (1882), Dr. Damrosch was made director and conductor of German opera. He imported some of the great Wagnerian singers, Madame Materna, Marianne Brandt, Mme. Seidl-Kraus, Anton Schott, and others. Wagner opera had come to stay. After a short illness, Dr. Damrosch died (1885) and his son Walter, then nineteen years of age, fell heir to the position of conductor of German opera at the Metropolitan Opera House, and of the Oratorio Society. Through Walter Damrosch’s efforts, Lilli Lehmann, the foremost Wagnerian singer, was engaged for the Metropolitan; he also engaged Emil Fischer, basso, Max Alvary, tenor, Anton Seidl, conductor, and Mme. Lillian Nordica (Lillian Norton), one of the first Americans at the Metropolitan. Walter Damrosch composed the popular American song, _Danny Deever_ on the poem by Rudyard Kipling. One never can think of this stirring song, without remembering David Bispham, who sang it into fame. Bispham was another native, who was for years a member of the Metropolitan Opera Company, and an oratorio singer. Damrosch is the composer of two grand operas, _The Scarlet Letter_ on a text from Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel, and _Cyrano de Bergerac_, of Edmond Rostand’s, made into a libretto by W. J. Henderson. He also wrote incidental music to three Greek Tragedies _Iphigenia in Aulis_, _Medea_ and _Electra_, first performed in the open air theatre of the University of California, in Berkeley, by Margaret Anglin and her company. Damrosch married the daughter of James G. Blaine in 1890, and soon after, he started an opera venture which for several years visited the large cities and brought Wagner into many places where his music had been merely a hearsay. He has been a pioneer in championing the cause of modern composers, and many well known European works have had their first American performances at his New York Symphony concerts. Dr. Frank Damrosch, older brother of Walter, is an important educator, the head of the Institute of Musical Art, and was once conductor of the Oratorio Society, and of the “Musical Art Society” in which were sung unaccompanied all the lovely motets and madrigals of Palestrina, Lassus, and many others. Dr. Frank Damrosch also founded the People’s Choral Union in which working men and women were taught singing and became members of a chorus of twelve hundred voices which performed the classic oratorios. He also founded the Young People’s Concerts, which have brought to young people of New York the finest music the world has produced. For several years, Mr. Walter Damrosch has had these in charge, and his talks explaining the works performed are quite as enjoyable as the music. THE MASON FAMILY