Music: Tosccmini's Finger

In 1878 a young Manhattan patrician named Templeton Strong turned down a proffered job with the swanky law firm of Strong and Cadwalader (now Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft), tucked an oboe under his arm, and took a boat for Europe. There, hobnobbing with such hall-of-famers as the late Franz Liszt, the late Joseph Joachim Raff, the late Edward Macdowell, he made a minor name for himself as a talented U. S. composer.

Thirteen years later he paid a visit to the U. S. When he found U. S. audiences could take his music or...

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