Though we have now considered those great figures which tower above the general creative level in present-day choral writing in Germany, there still remain a number of their contemporaries whose claims to recognition cannot well be ignored. Among them we find a group of composers who, like Reynaldo Hahn and Gabriel Pierné in France, have chosen the Christmas legend for musical treatment. And like Hahn, some of them have essayed to develop text and music along lines of the mediæval mystery. Felix Draeseke’s oratorio-tetralogy, _Christus_ (published 1905), a work of splendid scope, falls short, in spite of much incidental beauty, because of lack of dramatic movement and interest. More successful has been Philip Wolfrum’s _Weinachtsmysterium_ (1898), an attempt to revive the old German Christmas miracle-play, and partially employing mediæval song and choral music as thematic material. The work shows true musicianship, contrapuntal skill, and tact and intelligence in welding together its ancient and modern component elements. Other less pretentious ‘mysteries’ are Albert Fuchs’ _Selig sind, die in dem Herrn sterben_ ‘Blessed are they who die in the Lord’, published in 1907; and _Das tausendjährige Reich_ ‘The Millennial Kingdom’, published in 1909. The first may be considered as belonging to the type of _Traumdichtung_[86] (dream-poem) we owe to Elgar. Its music is modern, imaginative and full of effect. Even more dramatic is ‘The Millennial Kingdom,’ a succession of richly colored choral mood-pictures portraying the believers of the year 999 looking forward to the last day. This work, though essentially German, still shows the influence of Pierné’s ‘Children’s Crusade,’ as does Wilhelm Platz’ _Gottes Kinder_ (‘God’s Children’), an emotional and effective cantata (1907). August Bungert, in a larger choral three-part ‘mystery’ published in 1908, _Warum? Woher? Wohin?_ ‘Why? Whence? Whither?’, is not especially happy in a semi-religious text that smacks of theological disquisition. His scores contain some fine solos as well as choral movements, but are not especially well balanced, and, despite the composer’s confessed endeavor to make it another ‘German Requiem,’ it falls short of real greatness. Felix Woyrsch, however, whose secular oratorio _Tolentanz_, opus 50 (‘Dance of Death’), attains such a high level of individual expression, shows but little originality in his early work, _Geburt Christi_ (‘Birth of Christ’), opus 18. It is evident, consulting the list of his compositions, that it is the secular rather than the sacred that appeals to him. Aside from a Passion Oratorio (opus 45), ‘The Birth of Christ’ seems to be his only essay in church-music. We have on the other hand: ‘Sapphic Ode to Aphrodite’ (soprano, women’s voices and orchestra); a ‘German Hosting’ (solos, male chorus and orchestra); a number of individual secular choruses and, lastly, ‘The Dance of Death.’