One of the staunchest and most uncompromising upholders of a severe classical ideal is Daniel Gregory Mason (b. 1873). With sureness, if not over-rapidly, he has developed a mode of expression singularly lucid, symmetrical and thorough in its formal unfoldment. Thoughtful in the extreme, modest in the nature and statement of his themes, he seeks the source of power in completeness and symmetry of outline, in the bringing of his themes to the fullest and most rounded development, and in clarity of harmonic structure. Not even the strictest of classicists, in these days, can wholly escape the influence of the romantic epoch, and if a sympathy with the ideals of Schumann has in a measure qualified Mason's musical outlook in the first instance, it has yielded to a stronger leaning to the artistic creed of Brahms. Some of the composer's pages bear a marked Brahms-like aspect. These earlier influences have been broadened and enriched in Mason's later work by a studious devotion to the music of César Franck and of Vincent d'Indy, the composer having studied with the latter in 1902 and later. These latter influences have produced a very evident effect upon his harmonic scheme, which presents a conservative use and treatment of thoroughly modern resources, though with a characteristic avoidance of anything approaching to the harmonic sensationalism of much latter day music. In all ways, in fact, Mason's music is a protest against the sensational tendency of the time. The composer's most ambitious work is a symphony for grand orchestra (opus 11), in C minor, written in 1913-14. It is in four movements, the last two connected, without program, and is 'cyclic' in construction. Another important work is a quartet in A major (opus 7). The sonata for violin and piano (opus 5), in G minor, which has been widely performed, is thoroughly representative of the composer's ideals. The first movement, suave and musical, though not particularly striking in its themes, is in an extended sonata form, rather highly modernized with respect to secondary themes and transitional passages, and reveals much ingenuity in thematic variation and transformation. The warm melody of the second movement, andante tranquillo, is of memorable beauty. The last movement is in the nature of a spirited tarantella, with an admirably contrasted theme of choral-like character, an effect one may fancy to bear a slight analogy to the _finale_ of Beethoven's Kreutzer Sonata.