with that of Whitman in poetry.

An abundance of pregnant, beautiful, and novel ideas was his chief
possession, and he fashioned them into musical designs with great
skill and unflagging art. That he did not undertake adventures in all
of the forms of music, has been said. There is no symphony in the list
of his published works, no large choral composition. Yet he was far
from being a miniaturist,--he was, in fact, anything but that. His
four sonatas for the piano are planned upon truly heroic lines; they
are large in scope and of epical sweep and breadth; and his "Indian"
suite is the most impressive orchestral work composed by an American.
He wrote two piano concertos,--early works, not of his best
inspiration,--a large number of poetically descriptive smaller works,
and almost half a hundred songs of frequent loveliness and character.
The three symphonic poems, "Hamlet and Ophelia," "Lancelot and
Elaine," and "Lamia"; the two "fragments," "The Saracens," and "The
Lovely Aldâ," and the first orchestral suite, op. 42--which he might
have entitled "Sylvan"--complete the record of his output, save for
some spirited but not very important part-songs for male voices. The
list comprises sixty-two opus numbers and one hundred and eighty-six
separate compositions,--not a remarkable accomplishment, in point of
quantity, yet notable and rare in quality.

He suggested, at his best, no one save himself. He was one of the most
individual writers who ever made music--as individual as Chopin, or
Debussy, or Brahms, or Grieg. His mannner of speech was utterly
untrammelled, and wholly his own. Vitality--an abounding freshness, a
perpetual youthfulness--was one of his prime traits; nobility--nobility
of style and impulse--was another. The morning freshness, the welling
spontaneity of his music, even in moments of exalted or passionate