The music is reminiscent of Gounod; the melody is of the popular order, but not altogether commonplace, and embellished by Oriental _fiorituri_." An atmosphere of Eastern languor pervades the whole opera, which may be attributed to the composer's long sojourn in the Crimea. A name more distinguished in the annals of Russian music is that of Anton Stepanovich Arensky, born in Old Novgorod, in 1861. The son of a medical man, he received his musical education at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, where he studied under Rimsky-Korsakov. On leaving this institution, in 1882, he was appointed to a professorship at the Moscow Conservatoire. He was also a member of the Council of the Synodal School of Church Music at Moscow, and conducted the concerts of the Russian choral society for a period of over seven years. In 1894, Balakirev recommended Arensky for the Directorship of the Imperial Chapel at St. Petersburg, a post which he held until 1901. Arensky's first opera _A Dream on the Volga_ was produced at the Imperial Opera House, Moscow, in December 1892. The work was not given in St. Petersburg until 1903, when it was performed at the People's Palace. The subject is identical with Ostrovsky's comedy "The Voyevode," which the dramatist himself arranged for Tchaikovsky's use in 1867. Tchaikovsky, as we have seen, destroyed the greater part of the opera which he wrote to this libretto, but the manuscript of the book remained, and in 1882, at Arensky's request, he handed it over to him "with his benediction." Arensky approached the subject in a different spirit to Tchaikovsky, giving to his music greater dramatic force and veracity, and making more of the Russian element contained in the play. The scene entitled "The Voyevode's Dream," in the fourth act, in which the startled, nightmare cries of the guilty old Voyevode are heard in strange contrast to the lullaby sung by the old woman as she rocks the child in the cradle, is highly effective. In his use of the folk-tunes Arensky follows Melgounov's system of the "natural minor," and his handling of national themes is always appropriate and interesting. His harmonisation and elaboration by means of variations of the familiar tune "Down by Mother Volga" is an excellent example of his skill in this respect. Arensky's melody has not the sweeping lines and sustained power of Tchaikovsky's, but his tendency is lyrical and romantic rather than realistic and declamatory, and his use of arioso is marked by breadth and clearness of outline.