A very enjoyable meeting of te American Woman's Club was held in the banqueting hall 0" the Palace Hotel on Tuesday afternoon, and was very largely attended. The afternoon was spent with American composers of secular music, and the programme consisted of twelve numbers. All of these, with the exception of MacDowell's Con. cerro for piano, in D minor (first movement) were vocal, and trated the works of the principal American compoers. The concerto was given by Mrs, Houghton and Mrs, Maitland, and was highly appreciated.
The composers whose works figured on the programme were: Stephen Colline Foster (1826-1864), G. W. Chadwick (1854), Charles Fonteyn Manney (1872), Harriet Ware (1868), Daniel Protheroe, George E. Castelling, Edw. MacDowell (1861-1908), E, Nevin (162-1901), Charles Wakefield Cadman, Neidlinger, Arthur Foote (1883), William Arms Fisher, Carrie Jacobs Bond (1867), and Arthur Dunham. Solos were given by Mrs. Rodger, Mrs. Connell, Mr. Fitch and Mr. Houghton, while the ladies' glee club also. contributed. All the items were warmly received, and the next similar afternoons, when sacred and operatic subjects will be dealt with, are eagerly looked forward interesting review American composers was given by UN airs, Cabeidu, who said 1 was only the other day that Tennyson's al-susian to "ihe carly pipe of balfawakened birds" would have seryed famously to describe the state of affairs m the uncleared forests of American music. Yesterday, it had been no slander to say that American music had a purely algebraic value. But that was yesterday: this is to-d: The de berate Portuguese " Patience, to-morrow.is another day," and American music had large hopes of its Mariana." But meanwhile, they bad also a to-day that was neither without its com-forte nor empty of pride, To-day, the American composer did not need to be isolated, like a pest, to a ward of his own, His music was seen on almost every p: wingling with the ela European standards in democratic good-fellowship. The American march and dance tune had swept he world as no others of the day, and the more elaborate of forms oratorios, cantata and songs were by no me: in London, Berlin, Munich, Paris and Florence, Mrs, Cabeldu then gave brief sketches of the more well-known composers of secular music, and in speaking of folk-songs, said the acorest approach to folk-music in the United States was that played and sung by the negroes in the south, Before the Civil War brought freedom to the slaves, the ability to read wag very rare amongst those held in bondas Indeed, in many of the States that authorized slavery, education of 'a slave was a misdemeanour. The tunes to which they danced and to which they sang their songs and hymns were, therefore, traditional. The origin of some of the tunes was held on these grounds to be African.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.