The United States did not enter the list of cantata and oratorio producing nations until the last quarter of the nineteenth century. Before that time W. B. Bradbury, J. A. Butterfield, A. Hamerik, George F. Root and others had prepared the way for their successors by choral works of a simple, popular character suited to the musical conditions of their time. On account of the number, musical quality, size and extensive influence of his choral works, Dudley Buck may justly be accorded the honor of being the first important choral writer in America. The influence of Dudley Buck (1839-1909) in the field of church-music was probably stronger and more fundamental and lasting than in that of concert choral music, for the needs of American church-music could not be met, as could those of choral societies, by mere importation of foreign-made music. Yet his concert choral works are quite numerous. They include the 46th Psalm, written for the Boston Handel and Haydn Society, 1872; ‘Don Munio,’ a dramatic cantata written in 1874, whose story is taken from Washington Irving’s Spanish papers and deals with the wars and loves of the Moorish period; four cantatas for male voices--‘King Olaf’s Christmas,’ ‘The Nun of Nidaros’ (1878), ‘The Voyage of Columbus’ (1885) and ‘Paul Revere’s Ride’; ‘The Centennial Meditation of Columbia,’ written for the Centennial Exposition and performed at Philadelphia, May 10, 1876; ‘The Golden Legend,’ to which was awarded the prize offered by the Cincinnati May Festival Association for the best work by an American and which received its initial performance at the Festival in 1880; and his largest and most pretentious choral work, ‘The Light of Asia.’ ‘The Golden Legend’ is, like Sullivan’s cantata of the same name, a setting of a portion of Longfellow’s ‘Christus.’ The text is divided into a prologue, twelve scenes and an epilogue. The story is identical with that of Sullivan’s cantata already mentioned and the music on the whole rises to a higher plane of excellence. Especially effective and deservedly well-known is Elsie’s prayer in the fifth scene (‘My Redeemer and my Lord’), an aria breathing a deep religious feeling and filled with calm beauty. Buck is at his best in such numbers as the simple hymn for unaccompanied quartet (‘O gladsome light of the Father’), Elsie’s charming aria in the ninth scene (‘The night is calm and cloudless’ with a choral refrain of _Kyrie eleison_), and the love-duet between Elsie and Prince Henry in the twelfth scene.