Generally speaking, however, locality plays but a small part in marking the traits of our native composers. As in all places and at all times, opportunity to hear and to be heard has drawn the best talent to the larger centres. The musical life of New York, as well as that of Chicago, while differing in many essential features from that of Boston, discloses many similar phases of artistic endeavor as we compare the contemporaneous musical life of these cities. Among the names of those who were the pioneers in the musical culture of New York none is better known than that of William Mason, the first of America's great pianists, who in his earlier life did valiant service in America for the cause of Schumann and Brahms and whose entire life represents one of the highest and most effective of America's cultural influences. Dr. Mason was a son of Lowell Mason (q. v.) and was born in 1829. He spent the years from 1849 to 1854 in Europe, where he was one of the intimate circle of pupils which surrounded Liszt at Weimar. Dr. Mason's place as a composer is not a large one. His list of works is represented almost exclusively by piano compositions, of which he wrote about forty. They are all in the smaller mold, and, while they are rather stereotyped and conventional in their lines, they have found a place in the pianistic répertoire as grateful and pleasing pieces of piano music. The composer of church music has had a large place in the field of American composition. The impetus given to this branch of art by the New England 'psalm-tune teachers' was a strong one and it is but a natural consequence of their labors that to-day the church commands the services of so many of our writers. We shall consider the church composers and their works in subsequent paragraphs of this chapter, but the name of the Nestor of anthem writers--Dudley Buck--deserves mention in this place as being one of the first workers in the general musical service of earlier days in New York. Moreover, while the present fame of Buck rests largely upon his church music and upon one or two deservedly popular songs, he must not be overlooked as one of the first composers in America to essay the larger forms of cantata and oratorio. Buck was born in Hartford in 1839. He studied at Paris and at Dresden for two years. Returning to America, he pursued his career first in his native city, later at Chicago and Boston, finally settling in 1875 at New York, where he passed the remainder of his life. Apart from the large mass of church music, more largely representative of his real mission than any other of his compositions, the list of Buck's works includes a symphonic overture 'Marion,' a comic opera 'Deseret,' besides a list of something like eighteen cantatas, the most ambitious of which is 'The Light of Asia.'