[Illustration: Theme et Variations op. 88 Ant. Rubinstein] Some time ago Rubinstein left the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, where he had been for so many years, and visited Dresden, in search of rest and quietness, and laid aside all business for the time. For any further information, I must refer my readers to his "Autobiography," a fragment published in America, and "A Conversation Upon Music," published by Augner. C. SAINT-SAËNS. The French composer, Saint-Saëns, considers a piano a useless item in the art of composition, at all events in his case, for he rarely, if ever, makes use of one when composing, even to play over completed works. Some MS. paper and a pencil are the only materials he works with, and he has composed whole operas without a musical instrument in the house. This manner of composing M. Saint-Saëns finds a great saving of valuable time (and if composers' time is not important, whose is?), and he does not consider that ideas come any the more readily when seated before a piano; in fact, rather the reverse. The portion of MS. will be familiar to those who have studied his works. [Illustration] STANFORD. In Professor C. V. Stanford's opinion the art of composition can be cultivated, but never acquired. He composes according to the mood in which he happens to be, and never keeps to any fixed rule or time. As to composers working under pressure, he imagines that must depend greatly upon the temperament of the composer. He expresses no opinion as to which he considers his best work, but says: "That is for the future to determine and individual tastes to decide." The half-dozen bars of music are taken from his "Irish Symphony." [Illustration: C. V. Stanford] STRAUSS. Herr Johann Strauss, with whose dreamy waltzes most of us are familiar, for his part says that he is far too modest to designate any composition as his _best_. When he finishes one he forgets it completely for a time in the interest caused by his next work. Method he has none--only inspiration, genius--for in his opinion composers can never be made. "One may compose," he says, "very easily, or--not at all." The divine art must be innate, and a composer--like his brother genius, the poet--must be born, and can never be made. The music is taken from one of his well-known waltzes. [Illustration: Johann Strauss] BERTHOLD TOURS.