The music to this work is impregnated with an indefinable Oriental colouring which imparts to it an undoubted measure of charm. To Félicien David must be accorded the credit of being perhaps the first to employ distinctively Eastern characteristics. It was doubtless this that helped to ensure the prodigious success that attended "Le Désert." Without in any way laying himself open to the charge of plagiarism, Reyer may be said to have followed in his footsteps with conspicuous success. Since then many composers have treated Oriental subjects, and have endeavoured to invest their music with the peculiar "cachet" associated with the East. Amongst these may be mentioned Bizet, in his "Pêcheurs de Perles" and "Djamileh," Rubinstein in "Feramors," Goldmark in "The Queen of Sheba," Saint-Saëns in "Samson et Dalila," Massenet in "Le Roi de Lahore," Bruneau in "Kérim," and Villiers Stanford in "The Veiled Prophet." Bizet considered "La Statue" as the most remarkable opera that had been given in France for twenty years. It is sad that this, in company with many other works of value, should never have been offered to the judgment of the British public. The composer's next operatic venture took place on German soil. It was at Baden-Baden, at that period in the prime of its glory and the chosen playground of Europe, that "Erostrate," a two act opera, was brought out in the summer of 1862. Nothing at that moment seemed to presage any strained relations between France and Germany. French tourists came in crowds to the gay watering-place and deposited their offerings with a light heart in the temple of chance presided over by Mons. Bénazet; that very same year a cantata, the words of which were by Méry and the music by Reyer, given at Baden-Baden, celebrated the praises of "The Rhine, symbol of peace." _Quantum mutatus ab illis._ The French element disappeared with the war of 1870, and the suppression of the tables has long since brought Baden-Baden down to the same level of respectability as many another "Kurort." Musical amateurs sojourning in the picturesque valley of the Grand Duchy of Baden at this epoch seem to have had a good time of it.