The ‘Legend of the Fair Melusina’ was composed in 1875. Melusina, a fountain nymph, becomes betrothed to Count Raymond and marries him under the agreement that she may go her own way one day in every seven, without question or hindrance on his part. In these intervals she again becomes a mermaid and bathes with her nymphs in her native fountain. Later, urged by his mother Clotilda and his uncle Sintram, who are consumed with jealousy and curiosity, Raymond invades her privacy. Doomed by this violation of his compact to eternal separation, he embraces Melusina for the last time and dies in her arms. The weeping nymph returns to her former element. The music is not difficult and is replete with melody of captivating charm. The melodious prologue, the rollicking hunting song, the rapturous love-duet, the chorus of nymphs at the fountain with Melusina, the dramatic choral accusation of the people against Melusina, the final duet with choral accompaniment leading to the tragic dénouement--all these have contributed to make this one of the most musically effective of the more unpretentious cantatas. Hermann Goetz (1840-1876) was cut off too early in his career to have given full expression to his undeniably great talent, yet he has left at least one choral work that demonstrated love for, and ability in, this form. In his setting of Schiller’s _Nänia_ (_Auch das Schöne muss sterben_) for chorus and orchestra, as well as the 137th Psalm (‘By the Waters of Babylon’) for soprano, chorus and orchestra, he reveals a close kinship to both Schumann and Brahms in his effective handling of voices and instruments. V Edvard Hagerup Grieg (1843-1907), the greatest of the Scandinavian composers, chose musical forms of modest mold and outline--such as his altogether charming songs and piano pieces--for many of his most fragrant and characteristic thoughts. He wrote only three choral pieces--all in the smaller forms, but all individual, brilliant and full of his peculiarly charming idiom. They are _Vor der Klosterpforte_ (‘At the Convent Door’) for solo, female voices and orchestra, the well-known and vigorous _Landerkennung_ (‘Land Discovery’) for male chorus and orchestra and the Scenes from Björnson’s unfinished drama, _Olaf Trygvasson_, for solos, chorus and orchestra. The last is the largest and most elaborate of the three and has for its subject-matter the efforts of Olaf, a descendant of Harold Haarfagar (the first king of Norway) but brought up in banishment, to conquer Norway and convert its people from Paganism to Christianity. For fully thirty years after the middle of the nineteenth century had been passed, French composers were still too firmly wedded to the operatic stage to give more than fleeting attention to choral forms of the cantata type, and few French names of this period, therefore, will find place here.