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Another follower of Humperdinck is Eduard Poldini, whose clever and charming 'Der Vagabund und die Prinzessin, a graceful version of one of Hans Andersen's stories, was given in London with success in 1906.

He has also set various songs of Heine's to music, and a short cantata for Easter, "The Resurrection." An ability that is strongly individual is that of Arthur Farwell, whose first teacher in theory was Homer A. Norris, and who later studied under Humperdinck in Germany.

It may here be noted that the learned treatise of Professor Humperdinck upon the recent discovery of certain statutes found among the ruins of the Great New York Explosion is mistaken.

The progress illustrated in these examples is that from myth to Mahrchen, and Humperdinck in writing his fairy opera, or nursery opera if you will, paid tribute to German nationality in the same coin that Wagner did when he created his "Ring of the Nibelung."

While emphasizing this fact, however, it is well not to forget that in turning to the literature of folklore for an operatic subject Humperdinck was only carrying out one of the principles for which Wagner contended. The Mahrchen of a people are quite as much a reflex of their intellectual, moral, and emotional life as their heroic legends and myths.

Humperdinck has built up the musical structure of "Hansel und Gretel" in the Wagnerian manner, but has done it with so much fluency and deftness that a musical layman might listen to it from beginning to end without suspecting the fact, save from the occasional employment of what may be called Wagnerian idioms.

However, Strauss is not the only member of the post-Wagnerian group, but he is the chief one who has kept his individual head above water in the welter and chaos of the school. Where are Cyrill Kistner, Hans Sommer, August Bungert, and the others? Humperdinck is a mediocrity, even more so than Puccini. And what of the banalities of Bruckner?

Humperdinck is the first German operatic composer of distinct individuality since the death of Wagner. He has shown that the methods of the great composer can be used as a garment to cover an individuality as distinct as that of any writer in the history of opera.

Try any name you like. Doraine Smith, Doraine Humperdinck, Doraine Landover even Doraine Shay and, I tried it out with Clinton. Doraine Clinton. Don't you like it? I even tried Percival. It isn't quite so satisfying tacked onto a name like mine, and it's a poor beginning for Fitts, but with good, sensible surnames, it's fine." "It isn't a question of how it sounds, Mr. Percival."

Charmed with the effect of the fanciful little comedy, Herr Humperdinck suggested its expansion into a piece of theatrical dimensions; and the opera was the result.