Then there was _Schlemihl_—a symphonic biography by one Emil Nikolaus von Reznicek. This was the pièce de resistance at the evening concert. It is scored for one piccolo, three flutes, three oboes, English horn, three clarinets, bass clarinet, three bassoons, double bassoon, four horns, four trumpets, three trombones, contra bass tuba, two trumpets off the stage, kettle drums, snare drums, bass drum and tambourine, Glockenspiel, Cuckoo, Xylophone, cymbals, triangle, tam-tam, two harps, celesta, organ, sixteen first violins, sixteen second violins, twelve violas, ten violoncellos, eight double basses, and a tenor voice. This huge orchestra, plus the detailed analysis of his work furnished by the composer, explains _Schlemihl_. It is an attempt to out-Richard Richard Strauss, and, like almost all such attempts, it fails. Reznicek recounts the life and fate of a modern man pursued by misfortune who goes to destruction in the conflict between his ideal and his material existence. A compound essentially of _Tod und Verklärung_, _Tyll Eulenspiegel_ and _Ein Heldenleben_, but at no time reaching the heights attained by Strauss in all three of these tone poems. Imitators somehow almost always fall down in two ways—they devote far too little attention to what they want to say and far too much to their manner of saying it. And as a not unnatural result of this, they forget, or appear to forget at any rate, that melody is the prime essential in great music. Wagner had melodic genius, as we all realize today, and that Strauss has it is no longer open to very serious questioning. Reznicek hasn’t. His music is all rather good, but none of it good enough to grip you as the finest music does. It has no great moments but only moments of very great sound. The house fairly quaked at some of the fortissimos. And yet _Schlemihl_ would be pleasant enough were it not so pretentiously bombastic and did it not last twice too long. But the mere existence of _Ein Heldenleben_, _Tyll Eulenspiegel_ and _Tod und Verklärung_ deprives _Schlemihl_ of any greater claim than that. After these two pieces Scheinpflug’s _Overture to a Comedy of Shakespeare_ proved quite simple and enjoyable. It is a musicianly piece of work lacking neither in melodic invention nor in skilful orchestration. The Allegretto Graziosa, in which an old English tune from the Fitz William Virginal Book is introduced, is wholly delightful. And having said that much, one really has said all. The overture can have no possible chance of immortality; it is not great music, it is not intensely interesting or unusually delectable: one feels rather that such compositions as this are the by-products of the daily practice of the art of music by men of no little talent but very little genius. As such, they demand an occasional hearing—today Scheinpflug has the stage: tomorrow someone else—what matter who, since none are really masters.