the theme of the story is squalid and unpleasant, though lucid and undeniably effective for stage purposes.  The music makes an effective accompaniment to the exciting incidents of the plot, but it has few claims to intrinsic interest.  Leoncavallo is never much of a melodist, and ‘Pagliacci’ teems with reminiscences.  The opera was probably written in a hurry, in order to pander to the taste for melodrama which ‘Cavalleria’ had excited.  In ‘I Medici’ (1893), a tale of the Florentine Renaissance, Leoncavallo aimed far higher.  Here, too, however, his music is for the most part a string of ill-digested reminiscences, though scored with such extraordinary cleverness and fertility of resource as almost to disguise the inherent poverty of the score.  ‘Chatterton’ (1896) was a failure, but ‘La Boheme’ (1897), though somewhat cast into the shade by Puccini’s work upon the same subject, scored a decided success.  Leoncavallo’s music is conceived in a totally different mood from that of Puccini.  He has little of Puccini’s grace and tenderness, but he treated the scenes of Bohemian life with amazing energy and spirit, if with an occasional suggestion of brutality.  ‘Zaza’ (1900), founded upon a French play which recently achieved a scandalous notoriety, has found little favour even in Italy.  Leoncavallo’s latest work, ‘Der Roland,’ was written in response to a commission from the German Emperor, who believed that he had found in the composer of ’I Medici’ a musician worthy to celebrate the mighty deeds of the Hohenzollerns.  ‘Der Roland’ was produced in a German version at Berlin in 1904, and in spite of Court patronage failed completely.

Umberto Giordano, who during the last few years has steadily worked his way to the front rank of Italian composers, started his career with a succes de scandale in ‘Mala Vita’ (1892), a coarse and licentious imitation of ‘Cavalleria Rusticana.’  There is far better work in ’Andrea Chenier’ (1896), a stirring tale of the French Revolution set to music which shows uncommon dramatic power and in certain scenes a fine sense of lyrical expression.  After a good deal of preludial matter the plot centres in the rivalry of Chenier the poet and Gerard, a revolutionary leader, for the hand of Madeleine.  Gerard condemns Chenier to death, but is melted by Madeleine’s pleading, and rescinds the order for his execution.  The pardon, however, comes too late, and Madeleine and Chenier ascend the scaffold together, in an ecstasy of lyrical rapture.  ‘Fedora’ (1898), an adaptation of Sardou’s famous drama, has less musical interest than ‘Andrea Chenier,’ the breathless incidents of the plot giving but little scope for musical treatment.  The first act shows the death of Vladimir, the police investigation and Fedora’s vow to discover the murderer.  In the second Fedora extorts from Loris Ipanoff a confession of the vengeance that he wreaked upon the perfidious Vladimir, and, finding Loris innocent and Vladimir guilty, in a sudden revulsion of feeling