I cannot answer your first question, but it oddly sounds a bit like an English/Scottish/Irish? folk tune at the very beginning, but my guess is that observation is unlikely to have anything to do with the tune. It is quite fascinating. Obviously tonal, obviously regular phrase structure, with an equal number of measures per phrase, not unlike a folk tune... The harmonies used at the end of third phrase and beginning of the last phrase have a sort of Brahmsian sound to them. The accompaniment figurations are suggestive of the Romantic period. As to when it was written, I find that almost impossible to answer these days. One can find "new age" music written today that will sound similar, but not usually with that independence in the lines in the accompaniment...nor that variety in the harmony. The second "interpretation" obscures the tune by bringing out what I would consider the subordinate lines. I like both. Is melody important...it depends on how one defines melody...for me there is music that is more gesture than melody. I think of a composer like Paulus. Some of his music strikes me as series of gestures strung together, yet, at his best, the progression pulls me along. The tune you presented, with that accompaniment, sounded rather nostalgic to me, a thoughful look back. The melody speaks to me, but melody alone rarely "does it" for me. For me, a melody has its greatest significance within a context of the form and its setting. Why do I like a theme? It is easier for me take themes I like and then look for similarities. Most of the themes I like have often make use of some ambiguity between major and minor, will often feature the intervals of the fifth and fourth, make use of hemiola, etc. The most important quality is that the theme set one up for an expectation and then not take you there, but take you somewhere better than you could have imagined. This theme and the harmony held few surprises, except towards the end of that third phrase through the fourth phrase...a hint of Brahms and a hint of Schumann, where it became much less like a folk tune and then left me at the end wondering where on earth it was going to go... I can find great melodies from composers not necessarily known for their melodies, but it comes from the context. For example, when the B theme of the last movement of Hindemith Symphonic Dances returns, I find it very inspiring and greatly moving. When the short introduction in the first movement of the Prokofiev Second Piano Concerto returns in augmentation, just after the cadenza...wow. In the last movement of the Bloch Concerto Grosso No.1, fugue...when the theme returns in triple augmentation...another wow...the B theme of the Rondo finale of the Piston Seventh Symphony...Barber's song, Sure on this shining night, the main theme from the slow movement of his piano concerto, especially in the iteration with the rapid accompanying figures in the right hand...the main theme of the slow movement of the Ravel Piano Concerto, the cadenza of the Ravel Left Hand Concerto, take away the accompanying figurations and it is an ok theme, but with them...another wow...the aria "Lord Jesus Christ" from Barber's Prayers of Kierkegaard, the horn solo towards the end of the Firebird, etc. But I find it almost impossible to take that horn solo out of the context of material which precedes it and its accompaniment. Then there is the 18th Variation in Rachmaninoff's Paganini Rhapsody, a simple inversion of Paganini's theme. How about the opening theme of the Hindemith Second Cello Concerto, the main theme used by Walton for his Hindemith Variations...La Follia...the Dies Irae...while it is a wonderful theme, for me what Liszt did with it in his Totentanz makes it a great theme. Perhaps we could list favorite fugue subjects: c minor BKI well tempered of Bach; Harris Third Symphony; the aforementioned theme from the Bloch; etc. Then there is that wonderful fugue in the Hindemith Concert Music for strings and brass, not necessarily a great theme, but a great fugue. Doing this exercise I wondered if you were asking if an easily recognizable theme was important. I would suppose that could be a notion that suggests that the role of a theme is to provide an aid in figuring out the form of a work. So is the question, does knowing the form, or having recognizable elements which return in a piece, a good thing. For me, not having any reoccuring theme, gesture or idea, makes for difficult listening, that is why I find a work like La Mer to be such an amazing work. To the best of my knowledge, it is rather without a clear formal structure other than its dramatic content. Yet, it carries us along. It was rough seas for some of the first audiences, but yet it quickly gained approval. I find it difficult to think of works that enjoy such popularity that do not have some cyclic aspect to their structure. I believe that thinking of music purely in terms of a tune can be limiting to both composer and listener. I am reminded of a story my friend Kent Kennan told me. Kent was in Rome the same time Barber was. One evening Barber played and sang Dover Beach for Kent. Kent in turn played his Night Soliloquy for Barber. Kent told me Barber was very critical of the Night Soliloquy..."no consequent phrase!" Oddly enough Dover Beach is one of Barber's least often performed works and the Night Soliloquy was Kent's most successful piece. Sorry for rambling, but your example and question reminded me of some of the basic things I used to bring to my listening...and that maybe I should not neglect them as much as I have. Karl