I do not propose this afternoon to dwell particularly upon the circumstances of the life of Hugo Wolf; rather to consider the main characteristics of his work and to speak of their exemplification in the songs that are to be sung to you. It will be sufficient then, to indicate shortly the main course of his life. He was born in 1860 at Windischgrätz, in Austria, and at the age of fifteen entered the Conservatoire of Vienna. There he became involved, through misrepresentation it seems, in some difference with a professor, in consequence of which he was obliged to leave. For some years following, he had a hard struggle for existence, taking whatever odd musical employment he could obtain, pursuing in the meantime his musical studies by himself. He has related how at this time he laboriously analysed the works of Bach and Beethoven, the songs of Schubert and Schumann, and exercised himself in the technique of composition generally, in the most exhaustive manner. Quite early, his own incipient creative preferences declared themselves on the side of modernity. For Wagner he had an unbounded admiration. Berlioz, too, was a particular idol of his, and it is recorded how he would break off uncongenial tasks, such as the giving of lessons, or the training of a chorus in an opera for which he did not care, to plunge into the performance from memory of long stretches of the music of his favourite composers. Always a great reader, with decided and educated literary tastes, he was able to obtain, in 1886, an appointment as musical critic to the Vienna Salonblatt. Trenchant and outspoken in his style and opinions, his articles soon aroused attention. He condemned unsparingly, with a mordant and ruthless pen, what he held to be bad; and for what he admired he had equally outspoken appreciation. Implacably honest, his opinions led him into direct conflict with the Brahms-Hanslick party in Vienna—a circumstance that was to procure the severe handling of his own work later on; when his critics did not fail to wound him with the weapons he had himself forged.