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THE MUSIC TRADE REVIEW
ible network of the auricular canals an ava-
lanche of microscopic particles.
A little less of the salts of lime or magne-
sium in the gateway of the brain and we
should not have had "Salammbo" or "Samson
and Delilah" or "Manon." Why shall we
not, perhaps, sooner or later discern some
method of penetrating into the internal ear
of a living subject so as to modify the den-
sity, of composition of these magic humors
where harmony resides ?
HO knows whether we shall not be able
That should not, after all, be more difficult
after a time to make artificial Mozarts than to operate upon the brain, as is now
and unexpectced Paderewskis? And that frequently done with success.
merely by an operation on t\w ears of any
unmusically ordinary mortal. Such are the iVA ISS Cornelia Van Etten, prima donna
soprano, who will appear this season un-
hints that are thrown out to us as we reflect *
der
the
management of the Charles L. Young
upon the undreamed of importance attaching*
to the role of the liquids of the inner ear. It Amusement Co., is a most interesting lady.
is only lately that we have been studying She has quite an extensive repertoire and
is well known as a teacher. She has also
them. The results are momentous.
It used to be a favorite saying of the cel- been secured as one of the teachers for Mr.
ebrated German physiologist, Helmholtz, that Young's conservatory of music, which will
the human eye was a sadly defective instru- be located at 305 Fifth avenue.
ment, so much so that any good optician could I F the word "England" wherever mentioned
improve upon it with comparative ease. This
in the following excerpt from some re-
Helmholtz would have been unable to assert marks by J. F. Runciman were replaced by
of the ears of men, whose perfection, so to the word '"America" it would seem familiar
speak, is quite irreproachable.
reading. He says: "One of the many cur-
The internal ear comprises an inextricable ses under which music in England has long
complication of canals, ducts and the like, staggered is this everlasting craze for the
where circulate specific liquids. These av- exotic. In the old days nothing but Italian
enues terminate in nerves, whose duty it is music could get a hearing and hardly a mu-
to convey any sensations of sound to the sician could get a hearing unless he called
brain.
himself Signor. Then the country went mad
When the sound waves are collected by the over Mendelssohn, and, after Mendelssohn,
outer ear and directed into the auditory tube, over Wagner, and, in certain coteries, Brahms.
they strike against the ear drum and the lat- Incidentally it has been bitten by Griegism
ter is set into motion, vibration. This vi- and Dvorakism. It likes its pianists to be—
bration is transmitted by a chain of diminu- or to call themselves—Polish; it takes its
tive bones to the internal ear. Here the im- violinists from Spain or Hungary. In fact,
pressible liquids of the labyrinth in their turn England will take its music and music inter-
enter into vibration and finally influence the preters from anywhere save England; and it
acoustic nerve.
will never forgive an English musician for
C XACTLY what, in this complicated and being an Englishman. As long as this is our
**-' delicate telephony, is the part played by attitude we shall never have a musical school,
the liquids in the internal ear? Are they a mode of expression in music, entirely and
mere passive instruments, like a species of exclusively our own. There is no encour-
gearing, or have they clearly defined indi- agement for a man who tries to speak his
vidual functions to perform? No one knew own tongue. The elders are driven to ora-
until recently, when M. Marage of Paris be- torios or cantatas written in a modification of
gan his investigations, when it became appar- the Handel or Mendelssohn idiom; and the
ent that the part performed by these invisible youngsters, while still in the imitative stages
liquids, of whose character and value we have and susceptible to exterior influences, see no
so long known nothing, is of capital impor- chance of getting so much as a hearing un-
less they try to catch the public ear by surren-
tance.
The fluids—paralymph and endolymph, dering themselves to the music and mu-
the scientists somewhat barbarically term sicians that happen to be in the public favor
them—are, it seems, volatile oils. In them for the moment."
Truly this is a somewhat extravagant and
are dissolved bicarbonates of lime and of
magnesium, with an excess of crystals of the parochial view of the situation. Irritating,
insoluble carbonates. This constitutes a sort of course, it must be to some that Chinese
of syrup which conducts sound marvelously walls can't be built around musical England,
well. So we may suppose that the density of and we may say musical America, for that
the auditory liquids is the function of the matter. There is a small army of dyspeptic
"know-nothings" who would, if they could,
musical sense.
This would explain the delicacy and accu- place art on a commercial basis, to the end
racy of the musical ear and also the transcen- that the doors of this country may be closed
dent aptitude of a virtuoso or a maestro, says to "foreigners !"—God save the mark!
And it is noteworthy that the men in
Emile Gautier. And thus the work of the
England
and in this country who indulge
beneficent fairy whose wings the poets tell us
in
this
kind
of talk are largely the sons of
brush the forehead of the musical genius, may
foreigners!
They overlook the fact, as did
be reduced at the last to the condensation of
a
past
generation
in the political arena, that
some oily solution bearing through the invis-
the majority of the people of this country
were all foreigners at one time. These for-
eigners have been civilizing factors. They
brought to our shores music and art—oft-
.* .
times, it is true, at "high prices of admission."
But we were rich enough to stand it in the
past as we are to-day.
J\A LLE. MARIE TITIANO, who will be
' *• heard in this country in November,
is one of the several American singers who
returns to her own country this season with
many honors won abroad. In Paris she
studied under Leandro Campanari, although
her first apearance was with the Boston
Symphony Orchestra in Boston, where she
achieved such a success that Gericke en-
gaged her to accompany the organization
on a tour. She has a soprano voice of re-
markable range, and sings G in alt. with
ease, and the quality of her upper notes is
full and sonorous. She is a native of Penn-
sylvania of Welsh ancestry, and her real
name is Titus. Her operatic debut was
made in Varese, where she sung with Ta-
magno.
T" HE wide prevalence of the mistaken no-
tion that the vocal cords vibrate in the
axial direction of the larynx makes it de-
sirable to point out that observations by the
laryngostroboscope—a combination of a la-
ryngoscope and an adjustable intermittent
source of illumination—have proved to the
contrary for the male chest register, writes
Prof. E. W. Scripture, of Yale University.
With this method it is possible to follow a vi-
bration slowly through its phases. This has
been done by Musehold, who reports that
in singing in the chest register the cords touch
along their whole length; that in loud tones
the edges have a slightly rounded form, es-
pecially in the middle, indicating strong con-
tact in the middle and weaker contact at the
ends of the glottis; that in weaker tones the
line of contact appears even and thin, while
Iflusical glub $ jjjjiusement pirector
(Copyrighted igoi.)
The most complete and reliable
book of information ever pub-
lished in reference to first class
entertainments and allied inter-
ests.
A Necessity to Every
Manager, Artisf, Conser-
vatory, College of Music,
Private
Teacher and
Musical Club.
EDITION,5,000. 1,000 pages
6% x 10X.
Cloth covered. I l l u s t r a t e d .
Price, $3.00.
THE CHARLES
L. YOUNG
AMUSEMENT
CO.
General Information
Bureau and Ad-
vertising Agency.
No Registration
Fee
Artists booked and
Engagement s
secured.
Artists are requested to send in their names and permanent
address, or change of address, at once.
Note: THIS COHPANY is NOT controlled by any NEWS-
PAPER, and is under the personal management of
L..
ZWUIItf,
( S u i t e I]IO>
Townsend Bldjj.
All oar Instruments contain the full iron frame and
patent tuning pin. The greatest invention in the history
of piano making. Any radical changes in the climate, beat
or dampness, cannot affect the standing in tone of our in*
ttruments, and therefor* challenge the world that
vill excel any othec