Without being unduly extravagant, informal, though logical, as a formalist, Ayres commands his many qualities for the expressive purposes of a spirit eager for the discovery and revelation of perfect beauty. Such a perfection of beauty he by no means always finds; indeed, his earlier experimental excursions not infrequently left the ground rough over which he trod. And even at the present time he is only entering upon a full conscious command of his material. Only a keen sensitiveness to every significant influence, European and American, could have led to the development of so rounded and typical a musical character. Taught, in the first instance, by Stillman-Kelley and Arthur Foote, his broad sympathies led him early to blend the German, French, and American spirit through a devotion to no less striking a group of composers than Bach, Beethoven, Stephen Foster, and César Franck. A constant contact with natural scenes of the greatest grandeur, in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, has undoubtedly exercised a broadening effect upon his conceptions. While he has not employed native aboriginal themes, or even made a special study of them, many of his melodies have a strong Indian cast, which is difficult to explain except on the basis of some psychological aspect of climatic and other environmental influences. The trio for piano, violin, and 'cello (opus 13) abounds in supreme qualities of freshness and spontaneity. Taken as a whole, it is typical of the manner in which the composer rises, easily and blithely, out of the ancient sea of tradition into the blue of a new and happier musical day. The work was first heard on April 18, 1914, at a concert of the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, and has since had various public performances. The violin sonata (opus 15) is of great beauty and rich in characteristic qualities, and presents an interesting study in formal originality. A piano sonata (opus 16) and a 'cello sonata (opus 17) have been completed. Ayres has written songs of surpassing loveliness and originality. His 'Sea Dirge,' a setting of Shakespeare's 'Full Fathom Five,' from 'The Tempest,' reveals a poignancy of imagination and a perception and apprehension of beauty seldom attained by any composer. Other highly poetic Shakespeare songs are 'Where the Bee Sucks,' 'Come Unto These Yellow Sands,' 'It was a Lover and His Lass.' A richly colored vocal work is 'Sunset Wings' (opus 8), after Rossetti. 'Two Fugues' (opus 9) and 'Fugue Fantasy' (opus 12), for piano, of American suggestiveness, Indian and otherwise, are striking _tours de force_ of originality. The 'Songs of the Seeonee Wolves' (opus 10), from Kipling's 'Jungle Book,' are vivid presentations of the composer's conception of the call of the wild. Ayres was born at Binghamton, N. Y., March 17, 1876, and lives in Colorado Springs, Col. * * * * *