There are many effective bits of expressive writing in the score of "Iris," but most of them are fugitive and aim at coloring a word, a phrase, or at best a temporary situation.

There is little flow of natural, fervent melody.

What the composer accomplished with tune, characteristic but fluent, eloquent yet sustained, in "Cavalleria rusticana," he tries to achieve in "Iris" with violent, disjointed, shifting of keys and splashes of instrumental color.

In this he is seldom successful, for he is not a master of orchestral writing--that technical facility which nearly all the young musicians have in the same degree that all pianists have finger technic.

His orchestral stream is muddy; his effects generally crass and empty of euphony.