It is part of a broad and versatile mastery that it is difficult to
analyze. Thus it is not easy to find salient traits in the art of M.
Saint-Saëns. We are apt to think mainly of the distinguished beauty of
his harmonies, until we remember his subtle counterpoint, or in turn
the brilliancy of his orchestration. The one trait that he has above his
contemporaries is an inbred refinement and restraint,--a thorough-going
workmanship. If he does not share a certain overwrought emotionalism
that is much affected nowadays, there is here no limitation--rather a
distinction. Aside from the general charm of his art, Saint-Saëns found
in the symphonic poem his one special form, so that it seemed Liszt had
created it less for himself than for his French successor. A fine
reserve of poetic temper saved him from hysterical excess. He never lost
the music in the story, disdaining the mere rude graphic stroke; in his
dramatic symbols a musical charm is ever commingled. And a like poise
helped him to a right plot and point in his descriptions. So his
symphonic poems must ever be enjoyed mainly for the music, with perhaps
a revery upon the poetic story. With a less brilliant vein of melody,
though they are not so Promethean in reach as those of Liszt, they are
more complete in the musical and in the narrative effect.


_DANSE MACABRE_

Challenged for a choice among the works of the versatile composer, we
should hit upon the _Danse Macabre_ as the most original, profound and
essentially beautiful of all. It is free from certain lacks that one
feels in other works, with all their charm,--a shallowness and almost
frivolity; a facility of theme approaching the commonplace.

There is here an eccentric quality of humor, a daemonic conceit that