Science falls speedily out of date, and philosophy is soon out of fashion. Art that uses both, is neither. When it makes crutches of them and leans its whole weight on them, it will fall with them in the period of their inevitable decay.

Of course, there is evolution here as well as in science. The artist must hunt out new forms of expressing his world-old emotions, or he will not impress his hearers, and there is no gainsaying Beck's thesis that the Chinese puzzle of to-day will be the antique simplicity of a later epoch. But it must never be forgotten, that art should be complex only to avoid the greater evils of inadequacy and triteness. A high simplicity of plan and an ultimate popularity of appeal are essentials to immortal art.

It is my great misfortune never to have heard one of Beck's works performed, but, judging from a fragment of a deliciously dreamy moonlight scene from his unfinished music drama, "[Salammbô]," which he kindly sent me, and from the enthusiasm of the severest critics, he must be granted a most unusual poetic gift, solidity and whimsicality, and a hardly excelled erudition. His orchestration shows a hand lavish with color and cunning in novel effects. Several of his works have been performed with great applause in Germany, where Beck spent many years in study. He was born at Cleveland, in 1856, and is a graduate of the Leipzig Conservatorium.

A FRAGMENT OF THE SCORE OF "SALAMMBÔ," BY JOHANN H. BECK.

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In art, quality is everything; quantity is only a secondary consideration. It is on account of the quality of his work that James H. Rogers must be placed among the very best of modern song-writers, though his published works are not many. When one considers his tuition, it is small wonder that his music should show the finish of long mastery. Born in 1857, at Fair Haven, Conn., he took up the study of the piano at the age of twelve, and at eighteen was in Berlin, studying there for more than two years with Löschorn, Rohde, Haupt, and Ehrlich, and then in Paris for two years under Guilmant, Fissot, and Widor. Since then he has been in Cleveland as organist, concert pianist, and teacher.