There is a great deal of rhythmically direct unison passage-work throughout the score, which serves to throw the four-part sections into high relief, notably in the interlude music descriptive of the battle of Hastings, in which the masses of choral tone are handled with great power. When Strauss conducted the work at its _première_ in Heidelberg (Oct. 26, 1903), the epic ‘Song of Roland’ in particular made a deep appeal by reason of its primitive force. As much as any of his works, _Taillefer_ shows that Strauss is a poet as well as a composer. It might almost be considered a choral pendant, circumscribed by its more definite textual and historical program, of the composer’s symphonic _Heldenleben._ What is practically Strauss’ only contributions to the literature of sacred choral music, the _Deutsche Motette_ (German Motets), opus 62, after Friederich Rückert’s words, for sixteen-part mixed chorus and four solo voices, were completed June 22, 1913; while the composer was at the same time occupied by his ballet _Légende de Joseph_ and his ‘Alpine Symphony.’ Strauss’ _Deutsche Motette_ are his nearest approach to oratorio. But if this form has not appealed to him, it has to others among his contemporaries. In the same category as Brahms’ _Deutsches Requiem_ belongs Taubmann’s _Deutsche Messe_, first performed at the _Tonkünstlerversammlung_ in Dortmund, 1898, and given in New York in 1913 by the Oratorio Society. But where the music of Brahms’ _Requiem_ represents the deep outpouring of genuine sorrow and, owing to its consequent lyric character and exploitation of a single mood, moves within a more limited circle of expression and employs an idiom comparatively simple, Taubmann’s ‘Mass’ rings the changes of a richly varied succession of impressions. Though the lyric element is by no means forgotten, the dramatic note predominates. Its beauty is cast in a massive mold, and notable are the masterly choral fugues, far beyond anything the ‘German Requiem’ can show. The easily flowing, plastically contrapuntal development of the work is wonderfully varied, and at the same time serves primarily as an underlying river-bed above which a powerful emotional current pulses, often moving with genuine emotional strength. Taubmann has written other choral works: a setting of ‘Psalm XIII’ for solos, chorus and orchestra; _Tauwetter_ (‘Thawing-Time’) for male chorus and orchestra; and a _Sängerweihe_ (‘Bardal Dedication’), a choral drama, which provides for a chorus and organ in the body of the concert-hall to stimulate ‘ideal participation on the part of the audience’; yet _Eine Deutsche Messe_ will probably continue to be considered his greatest work, as well as one of the greatest glories of modern German choral composition.