exercising their dread dominion. Can such scenes be mimicked
successfully enough to preserve a serious frame of mind in the
observer? Hardly. Yet the music seems obviously to have been
written in the expectation that sight shall aid hearing to quicken
the fancy and emotion and excite the faculties to an appreciation
of the work.

"The Tower of Babel" has been performed upon the stage; how I
cannot even guess. Knowing, probably, that the work would be given
in concert form oftener than in dramatic, Rubinstein tries to
stimulate the fancy of those who must be only listeners by profuse
stage directions which are printed in the score as well as the book
of words. "Moses" is in the same case. By the time that Rubinstein
had completed it he evidently realized that its hybrid character as
well as its stupendous scope would stand in the way of performances
of any kind. Before even a portion of its music had been heard in
public, he wrote in a letter to a friend: "It is too theatrical for
the concert-room and too much like an oratorio for the theatre. It
is, in fact, the perfect type of the sacred opera that I have
dreamed of for years. What will come of it I do not know; I do not
think it can be performed entire. As it contains eight distinct
parts, one or two may from time to time be given either in a
concert or on the stage."

America was the first country to act on the suggestion of a
fragmentary performance. The first scene was brought forward in New
York by Walter Damrosch at a public rehearsal and concert of the
Symphony Society (the Oratorio Society assisting) on January 18 and
19, 1889. The third scene was performed by the German Liederkranz,
under Reinhold L. Herman, on January 27 of the same year. The third