Dr. Mackenzie decidedly disapproves of the manner in which composers in England are made to work--viz., to order. "Such pressure," he says, emphatically, "is unproductive of the best work, and highly detrimental to one's general health and comfort." For those reasons he objects to undertake commissions. TITO MATTEI. Signor Tito Mattei composes most of his instrumental music at the piano, but songs are composed anywhere, wherever and whenever he feels so inspired. One thing he considers absolutely indispensable to the success of a composer, viz., a thoroughly good musical education, without which no one, however gifted, can hope to make a name. "As a whole," writes this composer, "the English people love music, but are not, strictly speaking, a musical nation, the reason being that they do not give sufficient time and care to the study." The accompanying few bars of music are taken from his popular song "Beside Me." [Illustration: _Beside Me._ Dark is the night with-out, I fear The storm, beyond the bar! _Tito Mattei_] HUBERT PARRY. Professor C. Hubert Parry, whose last work, "Job," has been so enthusiastically received and criticised by the musical world, composes according to the nature of the composition on which he is engaged. "There are a hundred and fifty different kinds of work to be done in composing," he says, "and they vary in accordance with its being a big work like a symphony or an oratorio, or an opera, or a little thing like a song or a pianoforte piece. Then, what one wants may come into one's head when walking or driving, or in bed--anywhere, indeed, but in front of the paper it has to be written on. Then there is the general scheme to be considered, which usually comes first, and has to be thought out in big, cloudy way, out of which the details emerge into distinctness by degrees, and often want doing over and over again." Like many another composer, Mr. Parry prefers the morning for the mechanical part of the art, viz., the work of scoring and writing down and getting into order those ideas which have already been conceived. "As far as new ideas and schemes are concerned," he adds, "I am glad enough to take them at any time of the day they are so obliging as to come." It is wonderful how chary the English composers are of answering the question as to whether or no they consider their countrymen a musical race. It seems a subject on which they fear to express an opinion, and either treat the matter with silence or, like Sir Joseph Barnby, content themselves by saying "We're on the mend." Not so Mr. Parry, however.