of Duets for Two Pianofortes by EDITH GUNTHORPE and CECIL BAUMER
ARTHUR DE GREEF, best known to us in this country as a brilliant solo pianist, is also a composer of some distinction. Born at Louvain, he studied first at the Brussels Conservatoire, and afterwards was a pupil of Liszt at Weimar. Already at the ago of twenty-three he was Pianoforte Professor at the Brussels Conservatoire, but his duties there have not prevented his undertaking wide concert tours, in the course of which he has not only achieved many notable successes, but has also won for himself the warm-hearted affection and esteem of musicians everywhere. Grieg, for example, was one of his staunch friends, and for many years do Greef was regarded as above all others the authoritative player of the Grieg Concerto.
Of his more important works, several have been given in this country, notably Four Old Flemish Songs for orchestra, which ho conducted himself at the Queen's Hall in 1896, and a Pianoforte Concerto in C which ho played there under Sir Henry Wood in 1021. ONE of the present-day members of the Russian
School of composers who can look back with prido to the inspiring teaching of Rimsky-Korsakov, at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, Arensky was for a time a Professor at Moscow. In 1892 his first opera made a successful appearance there ; like so many of the popular Russian operas, it is on a national subjec-t-A Dream of the Volga. Other operas, ballets, and cantatas have followed it, and ho is known also as a distinguished composer for the Church. He has written also symphonic and other orchestral music, of which tho Variations on a Tchaikovsky Theme are best known in this country, and a good deal of chamber music, notably the two pianoforte trios, of which the first especially is frequently played. More than his contemporaries, ho may be said to have carried on Tchaikovsky's tradition, though without so rich a share of poetic ideas, and without Tchaikovsky's gift of dramatic force Hismastery of orchestral resources, too, is less facile, and less versatile than Tchaikovsky's, but he has at command a fund of pleasing melody, and many of his pieces are no doubt destined to enjoy a lasting popularity.