One of the most brilliant of the younger American group is Arthur Bergh (b. 1882), the spread of whose fame as the composer of melodramatic music to Poe's 'Raven' has been almost as rapid as was that of the erratic poet-genius himself through his achievement of that immemorially haunting poem. It was first produced by David Bispham, to whom it is dedicated, in 1909, and has become a universal favorite with his audiences everywhere. This music offers no startling problems for the modern theorist, scarcely for the lay musician, in fact, so simple and clear is it in construction; but it has an inner quality not easy to describe, a quality of verity, of directness, of immediacy of expression, seldom attained by composers of the time. Here are no blotches or wastes of mere color, such as Poe might easily invite; the work is everywhere thematic. Three themes, of electrical directness and poignant eloquence (two for the raven and one for the 'lost Lenore'), suffice the composer for the entire work, with a subsidiary theme or two, but there is not a spot of tedious or laborious thematic development in the composition; it is everywhere fresh, crystalline and crisp. It is music that lives and speaks at every point. A little tempered programmatic suggestion is employed, at the rapping on the door, but always with the musical aim above the realistic. The 'Lenore' theme is of haunting loveliness, and the theme of the 'stately raven' is a stroke of genius in the simple expression of mystery and dignity. Everywhere is poetic and idealistic atmosphere, gained always with the simplest of means. It is to the composer's credit that, with a true intuition for the relative values in the content of the poem, he has made, not the gloom of the shadow-haunted chamber, but the dream of the 'lost Lenore,' the dominant note of the work. The composer has made an admirable orchestral score of the composition, which was produced, with Bispham as reader, the composer conducting, at a concert of the 'American Music Society' in New York, on April 18, 1909.