I am afraid it cannot be said even that they have been beguiled into this serious mistake by the imperceptible rise of pitch just mentioned, but the truth is that they have committed this fatal blunder knowingly and wilfully, because they saw that it would pay. In support of this statement I will quote a few lines from the publication called "The Opera and the Art of Singing," by Glogg-ner-Castelli:
"In the field of singing a new man arose, who, in spite of great personal attributes, worked destructively for the future, and whose influence upon the later manner of singing is seldom truly recognized. I mean the singer Duprez. Hissed off at first in Paris, he turned to Italy, where he stayed several years, and then returned to the French capital. When he came to use his magnificent vocal resources, as he did in the Fourth Act of Tell, where he brought out the high C in the chest voice with all the might of his colossal organ, it was all over with the fame of all his predecessors. Nourrit, till then the favourite of the Parisians, a distinguished tenor singer, recognized the rival's power. His day was over, and in despair over his lost and irrecoverable glory, he flung himself from an upper window upon the pavement, and so made an end of his life. Duprez may justly be considered one of the greatest dramatic singers of our time, and the main features of his method soon spread themselves all over Europe. After hearing of Duprez, and how the chest register could be cultivated even into the highest regions of the voice, the public were no longer contented with the use of the falsetto. Soon it became impossible to be engaged as an "heroic tenor" without at least possessing the high B♭ in the chest tone. The singers found it a more thankful task to humour the taste of the public than to pay extra regard to the intentions of the composer; for often Meyerbeer himself indicates, by a pp, his design that the falsetto and not the chest tone should be employed. That every tenor singer, whether such high pressure suited his natural compass or not, strove to screw his voice up and 'make effect' was very natural; for art goes after bread, and a high C with the chest voice often realizes an income of thousands to its fortunate possessor. Roger has made a laudable exception; his beautiful use of the falsetto certainly produces a more agreeable effect than the forced chest tones so unnatural to the organ of many a singer. How widespread is this mistaken notion, that the use of the falsetto is entirely contrary to art, we hear frequently enough in the expressions of individuals when some unlucky tenor happens to get caught on one of these tabooed falsetto tones. Thus the school founded by Duprez, important in itself, has called into life a manner of singing, the ruinous consequences of which we can see daily."
But whatever may be the true reason or reasons, the fact that we have very few singers of eminence as compared with former ages, and that vocal art in general has gone down, is undisputed, and men have set themselves to remedy the evil by trying to ascertain the actual process by which the voice is produced, thinking that if they could but find this out there would be a true scientific basis upon which to found a way of teaching singing—or as I should rather say, of training voices—which would be sure and unerring.
The experiments of the great physiologist Johannes Müller are well known, and they have been followed up by others. But they were made upon dissected larynges, and as various teachers of singing started the most conflicting theories as to how the process shown by Müller was carried on in the living subject, and treated the voices of their pupils accordingly, these investigations have perhaps on the whole done more harm than good. Science was made responsible for the blunders of those who attempted to be guided by it. And thus it has happened that when at a later period further trials were made, but this time upon the living subject, and in the act of singing, they were received with indifference and distrust. Only very lately teachers of vocal music have begun to find out that here are facts put before them which cannot be gainsaid, and that if these investigations do nothing else, they at any rate make them acquainted with the exact nature of the vocal organ, and what it will bear and what it will not bear.
THE VOCAL ORGAN AS A MUSICAL INSTRUMENT.
"Physiologists," says Dr. Witkowski,[A] "are quite at issue when they endeavour to determine what kind of instrument the vocal organ resembles; indeed, Galien compares it to a flute, Magendie to a hautboy, Despiney to a trombone, Diday to a hunting-horn, Savart to a bird-catcher's call, Biot to an organ-pipe, Malgaigne to the little instrument used by the exhibitors of Punch, and Ferrein to a spinet or harpsichord. The last-named compared the lips of the glottis to the strings of a violin; hence was given the name Vocal Cords, which they have since retained. The current of air was the bow, the exertion of the chest and lungs the hand which carried the bow, the thyroid cartilages the points d'appui, the arytenoids the pegs, and lastly, the muscles inserted in them the power which tensed or relaxed the cords."
It must be admitted that the human voice bears more resemblance to a reed instrument than to any other; but when the comparison is pushed to its legitimate consequences it is found to break down. We cannot resist the conclusion that the vocal organ is infinitely superior to any instrument made by human hands. Its mechanism is so wonderful as to excite the profoundest admiration, and the more we continue to study it the more we marvel at the wisdom of the Divine Maker who planned it. I shall, therefore, speak of it simply as a wind instrument composed of—
| 1.— | THE BELLOWS. |
| Represented by the Lungs. Pl. I (Frontispiece), L. | |
| 2.— | THE WINDPIPE. Pl. I, w. |
| 3.— | THE VOICEBOX or LARYNX. Pl. I, v. |
| 4.— | THE RESONATOR. |
| Represented by (a) The Upper Part of the Throat, or Pharynx, pl. I, P; (b) The Mouth, pl. I, M; (c) The Nose, pl. I, N. |
| Plate II. | |||
| THE LUNGS | |||
| R. | Right Lung. | L. | Left Lung. |
| W. | Windpipe (Trachea). | ||
| V. | Voicebox (Larnyx). | ||
The top part of the left Lung is represented as partly cut away in order to show the ramifications of the Bronchial Tubes.
Plate III.
THE CHEST.
B B. Breast Bone.
C C. Collar Bones.
1 to 11. Ribs. (The twelfth not visible.)
M (curved dotted line). Midriff (Diaphragm).
L L. Lungs. H. Heart.
W. Windpipe (Trachea).
The Lungs are enclosed in the chest, which they fit exactly, and of which they occupy by far the largest portion, leaving but a small space for the heart. They consist of two halves (pl. II, R, L), each roughly resembling the upper part of a sugar-loaf somewhat flattened and hollowed out at the bottom. The left shows two and the right three distinct