The cantata consists of eighteen numbers. Eleven of these are allotted to the narrator (baritone), who, with the choral responses and supported by vividly descriptive instrumentation, gives a realistic portrayal of the frightful scenes. The weirdness of the music increases in intensity up to the entrance of the maiden in the house of the dead. In the seven remaining numbers other solo voices are heard. The lament of the maiden (soprano) for her lost lover and, at the close, her fervent appeal to the Virgin are fascinating in their beauty. There are also four duets sung by the bride and the spectre (tenor), together with one in which the chorus participates. As Hadow says in his ‘Studies in Modern Music’ (Vol. II, p. 206): ‘There is too much monotony of suffering; there is too much gloom and terror and pain; a tragedy so unrelieved comes near to overstraining the sympathy of the spectator.’ Yet the musical appeal, through the composer’s inexhaustible resources of rhythmic, harmonic and melodic effects, garbed in gorgeous orchestral colors, softens the horrors and lightens the prevailing darkness of the poem. Heinrich Karl Johann Hofmann (1842-1902) had the good fortune to win public recognition in different fields in rapid succession. In three successive years his ‘Hungarian Suite’ for orchestra (1873), his ‘Frithjof’ symphony (1874), and his cantata ‘Melusina’ (1875) achieved such instant favor that he soon became one of the best-known of the contemporary German composers. While these successes were somewhat ephemeral and while he manifested a tendency to sacrifice individuality of expression to sensuous charm and formal beauty, the ‘Melusina’ deserves long life. He followed the lead of Schumann in choosing legends and fairy tales as subjects for his most successful cantatas. These are, in addition to the one just mentioned, _Aschenbrödel_ (‘Cinderella’), _Nornengesang_ (‘Song of the Norns’) for female chorus, and _Waldfräulein_.