THE supposition of the general public is that composers sit down at the table or at the piano and write down at once some beautiful masterpiece snatched from the gorgeous wells of inspiration. As a matter of fact, most works are carefully worked out mosaics of an infinite number of trials.
Mr. Harry Rowe Shelley, the eminent American composer, who was a pupil of Dvořák, recently completed an anthem, and accompanied the manuscript of his latest anthem, Search Me, O Lord, sent for publication with his original sketches, indicating in some way the number of additions, changes, corrections he had made in the space of a few measures. The enclosed cut shows the process that this had been through. The entire sketches made for the anthem occupied two large pages of music paper.
