Coming among this assembly of cultivated musicians I feel rather like an ancient barbarian, because really I know very little about music. It is true I am a singer “of sorts,” as you will have occasion to hear very shortly, but my singing will be of very unorthodox kind; some would say of a barbaric kind, and many would not call it singing at all.

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, your Chairman has already taken the first step along the line which he has indicated by asking me to open three Discussions in the course of this the jubilee year of the Association. I sincerely condole with you, for I am afraid you will have had more than you want by the time the thing is over. But I think you will agree with me that when Sir Hugh Allen proposes a thing it saves time in the long run if it is carried out forthwith without any attempt being made to debate or criticise, and, therefore I am here.

After referring to his first lecture, Sir Henry Hadow said: Of course you will understand that I do not propose to give you this evening the history of music in three-quarters of an hour. All I can do is to pick out one or two points which seem of interest—points from which you can make your own journeys of departure.

(Note.—The line of approach to the appraisement of contemporary music which it is the purpose of this essay to suggest is one which in its argument must necessarily depend on precise musical illustrations. These illustrations cannot be given in terms other than those of the sound-impressions themselves. Extended quotations in music-type might in some measure supply this deficiency, but the analysis which it is possible to demonstrate aurally would further require a very elaborate technical description in words. I hope that my point of view will be clear in its outline, in spite of the fact that most of the detailed examples played and discussed during the delivery of this paper are here omitted.)

The human race must have been interested in the subject of Speech and Song from the earliest days. But scientific interest in the nature of human speech may be said to date from the year 1779. In that year the Russian Academy propounded for their annual prize the question “What is the Nature of the Vowel Sounds of the Human Speech?” and “Can these be Imitated by any mechanical device such as the vox humana stop of the organ?” I am quoting from memory. That naturally stimulated scientific interest throughout Europe, and from that year onwards various advances have been made.

I need hardly say that these addresses have no claim to be regarded as lectures on Musical History. It is impossible with the time at command to do more than deal with certain isolated aspects of the Art and especially with those which are particularly open to controversy. I have not, for instance, said anything about Beethoven, not because there is at present no controversy about his work for I understand that there is a good deal, but because he has been so definitively treated in the famous chapter of Sir Hubert Parry's “Art of Music” that I do not see how we at the present time can have anything profitable to add. Nor have I dealt with the old controversy of Brahms and Wagner (which occupied the world so much in my younger days) because at the moment there has settled a sort of twilight on their names through which we do not see their lineaments very clearly. I believe myself that this is only a temporary obscuration and that they, or at any rate, the best of their work, will emerge all the better after it. We shall begin to see, for example, the importance of Wagner's design and the genuineness of Brahms' passion. But for the present, within my restricted limits, I would rather leave them on one side and proceed to discuss some aspects of contemporary music. I say again advisedly “some” for the field of survey is so enormous—much larger than it has ever been before—that I cannot hope to do more than take a few examples as illustrative of particular points.

If we were to judge of the state of violin-playing and technics during the second half of the sixteenth and the whole of the seventeenth century from the didactic works published before 1700, we should be forced to the conclusion that the standard must have been very low indeed. The documentary evidence which we possess concerning the achievements of such virtuosi as Heinrich Johann Franz von Biber, Thomas Baltzar, Nicola Matteis, Davis Mell, etc., does not agree with that relating to the tutors printed during the period at which these players were active. We cannot imagine that the results obtained by the performers just enumerated were derived from the works published contemporaneously.