[Footnote 80: Gustav Mahler, from 1897 to 1907 director of the Opera at Vienna, has of late invited comment throughout the musical world because of the colossal form and daring orchestration of his symphonies. His present activity in New York should give American critics an excellent opportunity to estimate the importance of his contributions to musical art. Leo Blech is commanding favorable criticism particularly by his opera "Das war ich," while d'Albert's highly effective operas "Die Abreise" and "Flauto solo" are being performed on nearly every operatic stage in Germany. "Flauto solo" is winning popularity only secondary, perhaps, to that of Lehár's internationally favored operetta "Die lustige Witwe," which is at present going the rounds of the United States under its Anglicized title of "The Merry Widow."] XV. The reader will pardon the appendage of a few final remarks relating to the progress of lighter German music during the nineteenth century, for otherwise these records would not be complete. By retracing a few of our steps we find that the more important successors of Kreutzer (who was mentioned on page 73 of Chapter IX, and lived from 1780 until 1849) were Lortzing, Nicolai, Flotow, Suppé, and Johann Strauss junior. For charming originality and for naturalness of expression Lortzing (1801) stands head and shoulders above the remaining composers of this list. His works show the unmistakable influence of Weber, and just this romantic tendency accounts for the universal popularity of his "Czar und Zimmermann," this tendency being, moreover, still more marked in his best work: "Die beiden Schützen." Nicolai (1810) wrote in the conventional Italian style. "The Merry Wives of Windsor" is still one of the popular comic operas of the day. Flotow (1812) earned notoriety through "Stradella" and "Martha." His aims are not high, neither is his music on a par with that of Lortzing; he displays, none the less, a happy faculty for instilling warmth of sentiment into his works. Suppé (1820) has acquired the nomenclature of "The German Offenbach" by reason of his pleasing operettas and vaudeville. Johann Strauss junior (1825) owes a world reputation to his sprightly "Fledermaus." These are the men who have been instrumental in transplanting the daintiness and refinement of modern light French opera into indigenous German productions. The results have been directly beneficial. Not only has this transplantation of exotic principles tempered the general taste of the German public for an all too heavy and sedate form of melodic and structural treatment, but quite especially has German orchestration reacquired thereby much of that lightness of touch it apparently had lost after the culmination of Mozart's career. French instrumentation, in spite of certain of its superficial tendencies, is assuredly a very important factor in the evolution of orchestral music, and its continued development during