Just as, in order to bring into relief the main lines of development, many men and many details have been omitted, so, in order to bring the volume to well-rounded close, the works of many men which chronologically should find their place herein have been consigned arbitrarily to a third volume. Yet such treatment is perhaps not so arbitrary as will at first appear. Wagner, Brahms, and César Franck are the three greatest of the later romantic composers. They developed relatively independently of each other, and represent the culmination of three distinct phases of the romantic movement in music. Their separate influences made themselves felt at once even upon composers scarcely younger than they. Men so influenced belong properly among their followers, no matter what their ages. Inasmuch as the vast majority of modern music is most evidently founded upon some one of these three men, most conspicuously and almost inevitably upon Wagner, contemporaries who so founded their work will be treated among the modern composers, as those men who lead the way over from the three great geniuses of a past generation to the distinctly new art of the present day. Notable among these are men like Max Bruch, Anton Bruckner, Hugo Wolf, Gustav Mahler, and Camille Saint-Saëns. Some of these men, by the close connection of their art to that of past generations, might perhaps more properly be treated in this volume, but the confusion of so many minor strands would obscure the trend of the narrative. Moreover, exigencies of space have enforced certain limits upon the editors. Thus, also, the national developments, the founding of distinctly national schools of composition in Scandinavia, Russia, Bohemia and elsewhere, directly influenced by the romantic movement in Germany, have had to find a place in Volume III. It is perhaps in order to forestall any criticism that may be made in the score of what will seem to some serious omissions. Composers of individual merit, though their music is of light calibre, are perhaps entitled to recognition no less than their confrères in more ambitious fields. We refer to such delightful writers of comic opera as Johann Strauss, Millöcker, Suppé, etc., and the admirable English school of musical comedy headed by Sir Arthur Sullivan. Without denying the intrinsic value of their work, it must be admitted that they have contributed nothing essentially new or fundamental to the development of the art and are therefore of slight historical significance. The latter school will, however, find proper mention in connection with the more recent English composers to whom it has served as a foundation if not a model. More adequate treatment will be accorded to their works in the volumes on opera, etc.