Of greater importance than Perosi’s disciples Giovanni Tebaldini (_Le Nozze de Cecilia_), and Alfredo Ambrogio (_L’Entrata di Cristo in Gerusalemme_), is Enrico Bossi. The latter’s oratorios, _Canticum canticorum_ (1900) and _Il Paradiso perduto_ (1903), are distinctly concert oratorios in the grand style, more strongly individual and less mystically religious than Perosi’s. His treatment of Solomon’s glowing ‘Song of Songs’ is musically sensuous rather than symbolic, and at times suggestive, in its passion, of Massenet. It is a work rich in imaginative development and, again in contrast to Perosi, the weight is laid on its choral rather than its solo portions. The secular trend is even more marked in _Il Paradiso perduto_, and some of its movements are to be reckoned among the finest in modern choral literature. In both these works, as in his secular cantata _Giovanna d’Arca_, and his symphonic poem _Il Cieco_, with tenor solo and chorus, Bossi has infused the spirit of modernism into the Italian oratorio, and developed it beyond the purely ecclesiastical concept represented by Perosi. In this direction the influence of Ermanno Wolf-Ferrari, better known, perhaps, as a composer of opera than of oratorio, has also been noteworthy. His cantata, _Talitha kumi_ (‘Maiden, arise’), on the favorite subject of the daughter of Jairus, written in 1900, was followed by the oratorio _Sulamith_, which, if not dramatically as strong as Bossi’s _Canticum_, betrays melodic charm and warm orchestral coloring. His greatest choral work, however, is undoubtedly his _La Vita Nuova_, opus 9, in which, using Dante’s text, he has woven together incidents of the love-life of Dante and Beatrice in a succession of idyllic and lyric mood-pictures. The suggestive power of the work is remarkable; dramatic effect, rhythmic variety, harmonic subtlety are combined in well-nigh perfect expressional unity. The composer has followed his own inspiration throughout, and that with the happiest artistic results. There need be no hesitation in affirming that this choral work marks the apex of attainment in modern Italian choral composition, and it may be considered the most valuable individual product of the Italian choral revival. IV Turning from Italy to Scandinavia, we find that in general little creative work is done in the choral forms at the present day. In Finland, as in Denmark, the cantata after the Handelian or Mendelssohnian model is still in vogue. Even Sibelius has done little in the way of choral writing--only a ‘Festival Cantata’ and some choruses; nor has anything of importance been written in Norway in this genre since the death of Grieg; while oratorio, though largely given in concert in Sweden, has not stimulated original composition.