"The Culprit Fay," a musical setting of Joseph Rodman Drake's well-known fairy poem, was written in 1879. It is divided into three parts,--the first containing five, the second five, and the third eight numbers; the solos being divided among soprano, alto, tenor, and barytone, the last named taking the part of the Fairy King. The exquisitely graceful fairy story told in the poem is too well known to need description. It is admirably adapted to music by its rhythmic fluency as well as by the delicacy of its poetical sentiment; and while it does not call for earnestness or strength in any of its movements, there is ample opportunity for melodious and attractive pictures in tone of the dainty descriptions of the poet. The composer has improved these opportunities with much skill, and, notwithstanding the intrinsic lightness of the score, has secured musical unity and poetical coherence by the artistic use of the _leit-motif_. Nine of these motives are employed, characterizing the summer night, the elfin mystery, the life of the fairies, the fay's love for the mortal maid, the penalty for this violation of fairy law, night on the river, the spells of the water imps, the penalties imposed upon the culprit, and the Sylphide Queen's passion for the Fay. The skilfulness with which these motives are adapted to characters and situations, and interwoven with the general movement in their proper recurrence, shows that the composer has not studied Wagner, the master of the _leit-motif_, in vain. After a short introduction for the horns and strings, the cantata opens with a full chorus of graceful, flowing character ("'Tis the Middle Watch of a Summer's Night") describing the moonlight scene about "Old Cro' Nest." It is followed by the mystery motive announcing a weird alto solo, "'Tis the Hour of Fairy Ban and Spell." It is the summons of the sentry elf, ringing the hour of twelve, indicated in the score by the triangle, and calling the fairies to confront the culprit. A stirring and blithe instrumental introduction, followed by a short chorus ("They come from Beds of Lichen green"), describes the gathering of the fays, retarded at the close, and growing sombre as it is announced that "an ouphe has broken his vestal vow." A tenor solo ("He has loved an earthly Maid") tells the sad story of the guilty one who "has lain upon her lip of dew" and "nestled on her snowy breast." They gather about to hear his doom, and do not have to wait long; for the tenor song leads without break to a barytone solo, in recitative form, by the Fairy King ("Fairy, Fairy, list and mark"), pronouncing the penalties he must pay for his transgression,--the catching of a drop from the sturgeon's silver bow to wash away the stain on his wings, and the relighting of his flamewood lamp by the last faint spark in the train of a shooting star.