Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/267

Rh only died with him. Matteucci, when past his eightieth year, used to sing in church every Sunday per mera devozione, and such was the freshness and flexibility of his voice that those who could not see him took it to be that of a young man in the flower of his age. Indeed, this was not very uncommon in singers trained according to the best traditions of the old Italian school, which seems to have possessed the secret of perpetual youth as far as the voice was concerned.

Now, to what can our poverty in voices of the highest class be due? I believe to a combination of three different causes: First, inadequacy of training; secondly, the want of good teachers; and, thirdly, the gradual rise of the concert pitch which has taken place in recent years. Insufficient training arises from the breathless haste to "succeed" which is a characteristic of this feverish age. Voices are quickly run up by contract, and as swiftly fall into decay. The preference for supposed "royal roads" over the hard-beaten path that has led former singers to fame is another error which has worked almost as much mischief in song as it has in scholarship. A vocalist nowadays thinks that a year in England and a second year in Italy is all that is needed to equip him for a brilliant artistic career. In "the brave days of old" singers never deemed their vocal education complete until they had given six or seven years to the ceaseless study of their art.

The want of good teachers is closely connected with the inadequacy of modern training, for it is evident that a man who has not himself had the patience or the industry to master his art can not be a satisfactory guide to others. Show and superficial brilliancy of execution are aimed at rather than solidity and thoroughness; more attention is paid to vocal tours de force than to artistic ornament. The firm basis of experience has been abandoned for fantastic methods of teaching which are useless when they are not positively harmful. I would earnestly advise all those who profess to impart the divine art of song, like Prospero, to "drown their books," and study the production of the voice as an art, and not as a branch of Chinese metaphysics.

That the high concert pitch now generally used, especially in this country, throws an unnatural strain on even the finest voices, is a fact as to which most authorities are agreed. In the classical period of music, A (second space, treble clef) represented from four hundred and fifteen to four hundred and twenty-nine vibrations; this pitch suited the human voice admirably. The desire to get increasingly brilliant effects from the orchestra forced the pitch higher and higher, till so much confusion prevailed that, in 1859, a French commission fixed the standard pitch at four hundred and thirty-five vibrations. This is called the normal diapason, and is now generally used on the Continent; but England, with her