work, slowly bending half and then wholly down to strengthen the muscles of the thighs and the legs. Follow these up with the extension exercises (from a high vertical to touching the toes).

"In the bathroom take a brisk rub down and do the back-of-neck work with the towel. That is, lassoo you head with the towel and have a tug-of-war between the muscles of your neck and those of your back arms.

When you go upon the street, practice the outdoor breathing-work; inhale and hold your breath while you walk five steps, exhale, inhale, once more, and hold your breath while you walk ten steps, and so on up to twenty. If you keep this up for a few days, it will become automatic, and your breathing will become deeper and fuller without any effort upon your part. As you walk always carry your chest further to the front than any other portion of the anterior body, and keep the back of your neck close to the back of your collar at all times. If you carry out these few exercises daily, you will enjoy the best of health and always maintain an erect and well-shaped body."

MUNICH AND BAIREUTH.

"

The Wagner cycle at Baireuth has been thoroughly discussed, but the annual Wagner cycle at Munich has received next to no attention. The royal opera at Munich has been in the habit of giving, during the autumn, a cycle of Wagner's operas, drawing to the city European and American visitors returning from Baireuth. It attempts to furnish performances not inferior to those of the Wagnerian Mecca. Of the cycle this year, Claude Phillips writes as follows in the Fortnightly Review:

"The Munich program this autumn has been of altogether exceptional interest in its illustration of German dramatic music by its greatest masterpieces. Mozart has been represented by his Nozze di Figaro' and Don Giovanni,' entirely remounted and reconsidered with the intention of reproducing their exact musical execution under Mozart himself. Beethoven's 'Fidelio' has been played in conjunction with his Ruins of Athens.' Lastly, the Munich authorities, wisely loosing their hold for the moment on the Ring des Nibelungen,' now again, after a lapse of twenty years, revived at Baireuth, have produced, in recurrent succession, Rienzi,' 'Der Fliegende Holländer.' Tännhäuser,' 'Lohengrin,' 'Die Meistersinger,' and Tristan und Isolde.' A scheme hard to beat is this, had it been carried out with artistic completeness, and with some regard for the ears of the distinguished foreign audiences attending these representations. Some few celebrated 'guests' have, indeed, been called in to aid the battalion of well-seasoned veterans who still fill too many of the important parts at the Munich opera, and among them the most accomplished of living German singers, Frau Lilli Lehmann, herself, alas, now a

veteran, though she is still in the fullest possession of her vocal powers. As a rule, however, the local singers have had the field pretty well to themselves, and the performances, so far as the principals and the chorus singers are concerned, have been given with a kind of sans gêne, a kind of disinclination to strive for perfection where it is easily within reach, such as suggests that the ordinary winter representations to which the Munich citizen is treated, must be far above instead of far below the uncertain average which is considered good enough for the foreigner."

A detailed analysis of the representations at Munich and at Baireuth follows this introduction, and the conclusion of the writer is of general interest to lovers of music, and especially to Wagnerians:

The moral of all this, if moral there be, is that Baireuth, Munich, Vienna, and the chief musical centres where the German tongue is spoken, must make a serious effort to recover lost ground and to restore, to some extent, the-in Germany-moribund art of singing, unless they would see the supremacy which is still conceded to them in representing Wagner's operas and music dramas slip gradually from their grasp, and fall into other hands.

'Long ago, the whole world took to itself the operas of Mozart and of Beethoven, ac-, cepting less unreservedly, on account of their purely Teutonic character, those of Wagner's precursor, Weber. Now, it has at last passionately adopted the works not less of Wagner's later than of his earlier maturity, and their performance accordingly concerns the whole world. So long as a German representation meant the cooperation of great artists like Niemann, Heinrich, Vogl, Amalie Materna, Lilli Lehmann, Rosa Sucher, Reicher-Kindermann, and Marianne Brandt, we were content; but now that detestable singing disfigures even the most carefully prepared and the most loudly advertised performances in Germany, without exciting any serious protest either from the German press or from German audiences, it is time to pause. It is not so much that Wagner ruins singers, as that singers, coming insufficiently prepared to their great task, ruin Wagner. When we have Jean de Reszké giving a vocally unapproachable performance of Tristan, Van Dyck maintaining himself as the only possible Parsifal, Edouard de Reszké interpreting the typically German part of Hans Sachs, not only with a finished art which leaves far behind that of any German, but with perfect simplicity and pathos, we see that the fatherland can no longer pretend to any monopoly, even in the interpretation of Wagner.

"What we should lose by altogether renouncing the cooperation of the German element in rendering the works which more than any others stir our pulse just now, it is easy to see. The Teuton has the capacity for presenting lyric drama of the heroic type with a breadth, with an absolute conviction, with an entire absorption of self in the task

undertaken, such as the performer of another nationality may cunningly simulate, but can not possess in the same degree. Still, even these most precious qualities may be too dearly purchased, if they can not be dissociated from the uncouth singing to which it has been necessary in the course of these remarks to make constant reference. Let Baireuth and Munich beware, then, lest it become necessary in time to shift the scene of the Wagnerian model representations to Paris or to London, where, if we should lose much that is essential, we should also gain something appreciable. A result so deplorable as this is exactly what we should seek to avoid; but it can be avoided only if Germany will help herself, by insisting on the aspirants for dramatic and for lyrical honors being trained, before they venture upon the operatic stage, to something like the degree of completeness and efficiency which has always characterized her instrumentalists."

THE ORIGIN OF SPEECH.

About a year ago, Alfred Russell Wallace presented a new theory of the origin of language. He found in "mouth-gesture" a significant indication of the beginnings of speech. His article was summarized in these columns and is doubtless remembered by the reader. In the Fortnightly Review, Charles Johnston criticises Prof. Wallace's theory, and advances an original explanation of his own. Among other objections, he urges the following:

"Prof. Wallace has, I think, two quite different ideas in mind when he writes of the expressiveness of speech. These are mouth-gesture, and something else entirely different from mouth-gesture, some quality of meaning supposed to lie in the sounds themselves; the former, visible, appealing to the eye; the latter, invisible, appealing to the ear.

"Of the former, the visible mouth-gestures, the most noticeable is undoubtedly the Malay's habit of pointing with his lips; but is it certain that this has more to do with articulate speech than the Madrasi's habit of pointing with the side of his head, or the Irishman's habit of pointing with his pipe? In each case, a very important factor is that the pointer's hands are occupied, whether in rolling the meditative sirih, in handling the Tamil mamoti, or in fathoming the void of the Hibernian breeches' pockets. But there is a rather serious difficulty in applying this principle of mouthgesture. It is this: To speak generally, there are five points of contact in the mouth at each of which a series of consonantssurds, sonants, aspirates, nasals, sibilantsare formed, viz., the throat, palate, roof of the mouth, teeth, and lips; and only the motions of the last are visible, while the motions of the four others are to all intents and purposes quite invisible. Therefore, at a rough estimate, we may say that four-fifths of speech is carried on invisibly, and can not

come within the range of mouth-gesture at all, Or can the sense of mouth-gesture be subjective in the speaker, as Prof. Wallace seems to suggest in writing of the word growth? But one has only to read our own accounts of the vocal organs and their actions, before our grammarians had the good fortune to come across the scientific phonology of Sanskrit, to see how extremely difficult it is to arrive at a correct conception of the relation between organs and sounds, and therefore to apply the invisible motions of the organs to the purposes of expressiveness in speech."

In regard to expressiveness of speech, the writer thinks that a large part of the suggestiveness of words is due to association of ideas; that the vividness apparently contained in the sound is really due to the habit of our imaginations. He also believes that the human race began to talk, just as babies do, and that by watching babies, we can form an idea of the origin of articulate language. Discussing at length the subject of baby talk, the writer says:

This leads us to two important conclusions: Baby talk is as strictly international as it is spontaneous; and all its words convey broad general ideas, whether, as in vowel-words, of subjective feelings, or, in consonant words, of objective sensations. Limiting and defining the words is our work, not the baby's.

"After the long vowel period and the transition epoch of breathings and hardlyformed semi-vowels, there came the contact or consonant period, beginning with nasals, which are not true consonants in the strict sense, and then leading on to sounds like pa-pa, ka-ka, etc., with different vowels and correspondingly different meanings. Then is added the dental ta-ta, which seems to record a sense-impression made on the baby, and thus wavers between meanings like 'thank you,' touch,' 'grope,' parent,' etc.; again, a broad general idea of a sense-impression borne in upon the consciousness of the child.

"We have thus a range of vowels, three consonants or contacts, and their breathings and nasals, all spontaneously produced by the baby under the influence of an inner necessity. Our phonetic results were these: First, a long period of vowel-words only; then, after a transition period of breathings and semi-vowels, the formation of three contacts of throat, lips, and teeth-with the corresponding nasals. At first sight, it would appear that the phonetic range thus reached is entirely inadequate for the purposes of articulate speech; that no language can exist so scantily furnished with sounds. The answer to this objection is, that, in the great Polynesian family of tongues, we have a whole series of allied languages, rich in legends, songs, incantations, histories of war and of emigration, whose range of sounds is exactly what we have described in the second period of baby talk.

"It is remarkable that, though we have

now no pure vowel-languages, we have, in the Polynesian tongues, an abundance of pure vowel-words, which strongly support the presumption we have already reached, of a prolonged vowel-epoch of speech for the whole human race before any consonants were formed at all. Accordingly, we are justified in adhering to a vast period of vowel-language, preceding by a long interval all consonant speech,-a transition period of great wealth and variety, where breathings and semi-vowels were added to pure vowels; then probably nasals; and iast of all, pure consonants or full contacts-of which, in highly-developed languages, there are five varieties."

CARDINAL SINS OF PLAYWRIGHTS.

Some practical hints concerning playwriting were given by Charles Klein, the librettist of El Capitan," in a recent interview with the New York Dramatic Mirror. Mr. Klein is house-dramatist of the Empire Theatre, and a successful playwright. He says:

"Most playwrights at the outset of their career are apt to commit one of two cardinal sins. If their literary instinct predominates they are prone to write talky dialogue and allow their characters to describe the plot instead of setting forth the plot through dramatic action. If, however, the dramatic instinct predominates in an embryo playwright he is prone to write theatrical dialogue and stuff his play with theatrical incidents that have no logical sequence. But the actor-playwright has this advantage over the literary chap. His dramatic instinct enables him to do intuitively what the other has to acquire by cultivation. He may sin in the line of theatricalism, but he does not tire out the patience of an audience with dialogue utterly irrelevant to the plot. As his characters are made to convey the story of the play through action, his dialogue is written for the purpose of interpreting action, and the action is not merely dragged in at spasmodic intervals to interpret the dialogue, if I may put it in that way.

Let

To cure dialogueism write the action of a play from start to finish without a word of dialogue. Now, what is a play that is enacted without a word being spoken by the actors? A pantomime, of course. the novelist first try his hand at pantomime. Action, action, an abundance of action, that is my recipe for curing dialogueism. The only proper way to write a play is to begin with mapping out the action. The theatrical chap might try his hand at writing short stories. The way I endeavored to tone down any leaning I might have toward theatricalism was to read the dialogue of standard novels, and listen attentively to the way people talked in real life. It has been my experience that before writing a play for a star performer, it is indispensable to study first his individuality and temperament, as

this is not unlikely to suggest a plot and and situations best calculated to bring out his strong points."

CALVE AND MELBA TO AMERICAN VOCAL

STUDENTS.

Both Emma Calvé and Nellie Melba, the operatic stars, contribute numerous suggestions to American music students in the Ladies' Home Journal for November. The former is of the opinion that Americans have, in the field of music and especially in the vocal field, all the characteristics of "the conquering race:"

"They are possessed naturally of the most exquisite voices, which, when properly cultivated, are almost unrivaled; they have indomitable energy, perseverance and pluck; they stop at nothing, are deterred by no trouble and prevented by no obstacle. Poverty, weariness, exertion, hard work-none of these living spectres which affright the average art-worker has terrors for them. Their physique and their temperament seem made for toil and to surmount discouragement, and the success which they are daily achieving in the field of both operatic and concert singing is testimony to their natural fitness for accomplishment and to their ability to excel, They seem, in fact, to be most lavishly fitted by nature for the parts they are assuming. To these gifts of voice, energy, pluck and perseverance, they frequently add a beauty of face and grace of form and movement which the public recognizes as most important factors in the success of the singer's career. They have, too, the temperament which makes great artists and great actresses, the artistic feeling which has for its standard, perfection, and which is satisfied with nothing less."

Mme. Calvé takes exception to the criticism that American students are not thorough, steady, persevering, conscientious, and intelligent workers. She maintains that for the impersonation of a character everything must be sacrificed, that absolute musical familiarity must underlie the dramatic exposition of a character, and she emphasizes the value of dramatic style:

"Many girls make the grave error of considering a training for the concert-stage sufficient preparation for an operatic début. No mistake can be greater. The operatic singer must have her art, but she must be able to draw in bold, broad lines, while the concert-singer must make her effect in fine, delicate, shading. The operatic singer, to be effective, must portray with a free, bold stroke of the brush, 'the concert or parlor singer with the fine tracery of the pen. The effects to be gained are entirely different, and the methods employed must also vary in degree. Of course, a fundamental knowĺedge of voice-production, training, vocalization, breathing, and style is absolutely requisite to both, but after mastering these, a

distinction in their application and treatment must be recognized and made.

"I have often been asked if I believed that dramatic' ability was a quality that could be acquired. I do not. I think that it is a faculty-an inborn talent which can be increased and developed to a great degree, but I do not believe that a genuine dramatic sense can be acquired. A clever imitation of it can be induced by study and by training, but it will be spurious, and when contrasted with the genuine fire will show its defects and limitations. Actors, like poets, are born, not manufactured.

"A dramatic style is a priceless addition to the art of a singer. With it she can make her songs, her interpretations, her characters, interesting and vivid. Without it she is always uninteresting and a failure with her audience, no matter how perfect her vocalization, how exquisite her voice. This dramatic style should both succeed and precede the voice and its training; it should be always present and always available. It covers the ability to make the meaning of a song or a character chosen for interpretation vivid and real to the listener. It includes facial expression, bodily pose and gestures, as well as the mental exhibition of the expression of the song or the role."

Mme. Melba lays stress on the paramount importance of selecting a competent vocal instructor. "If you can not sing piano, something is wrong with yourself or your method," she writes. Physical exercise; training as musicians, including knowledge of the piano and the theory of music; partsinging (not chorus work) with trained singers; and the study of languages; are singers' requisites. Of European study she

says:

European study-by which I mean the opportunity of receiving instruction from the greatest masters, of studying the operatic stage with its best exponents, and of securing a successful début in grand opera or in concert-is for two classes, the really talented and the wealthy. It has sickened my heart to watch, year after year, the steady succession of young girls, possessing fresh, sweet voices, perhaps, but lacking both talent and musical intelligence (which are of equal importance with a voice), unable often to afford the common necessities of life, straining every nerve, going without food, clothes, and almost without shelter-for what? Usually to add their slender pittance to the fortune which has been made out of their class by cruel and grasping teachers-men and wom en eminent in their profession for their ability, but lacking sufficient honesty to say to the pupil, You will never make a singer. It is not in you. Go.' No girl, unless she has money to throw away-I mean by this a large fortune to spend— should go abroad for vocal instruction until she has been passed upon, musically, by at least two or three artists-people who value the glory and fair name of their art, and the life and perhaps the honor of the would-be singer too highly to advise her to enter upon a career of privation and hardship, where there is for her, by nature's fixed decree, no

possibility of success. If possible, these artists should be strangers to the singers— people who will not be moved nor swayed by any personal interest, and will, therefore, speak only truth. But only those so passed upon, and those others who can afford to indulge a hobby, should ever go abroad for instruction. For the average singer America offers most excellent teachers; she can find all she needs at home. For operatic singers some foreign training is practically necessary so long as impresarios consider Europe their market, and retired artists make it their home."

MUSIC IN THE COLLEGE.

On the assumption that America's contri-, bution to the cause of music lies not so much in musical creation as in musical education, her work is that of criticism, interpretation, and popular diffusion; hence the importance of music in the colleges. We quote Edward Dickinson in the Philadelphia Musician:

"The duty of a college, when it welcomes this noble art, is not only to make it act upon the student body as a whole, but also to see that all its manifestations are the evidence of vital power, to keep away all that is trivial or unwholesome, and to promote the highest musical intelligence. The college must treat music as it treats literature,-examine, formulate, and teach the historic, psychologic, and aesthetic principles on which the art rests, show the relationship of music to individual and social life, expound the works of the great composers, inculcate right aims in art as well as right methods. This must be accomplished by technical instruction, by lectures, and also by living demonstration by means of orchestras, choruses, choirs, and skilled individual performers. The college, if it has anything to do with music at all, should be a radiant centre of musical culture and enlightenment. It must not be content with limited technical training, a specialized professionalism. Scientific instruction, however elaborate and complete, must be tributary to the great leading motive which discriminates the college from the technical or professional school. The college may do the work of the musical conservatory, but it must also do more than the ordinary conservatory has yet found means or inclination to do.

"The practical conclusion of all this in its application to the musician is, that when he enters the service of a college or a university, he must be prepared and eager to do work of a college or a university grade. College trustees, presidents, and faculties may open the field and provide the equipment, but it depends entirely upon the musical instructors whether the work will be broad, fruitful, and worthy of the institution's dignity. College governing boards are not composed of men of musical knowledge. They feel that music ought to work into the college's general scheme of higher culture, but the ways and means they must leave to the teachers in the musical department. If the

college rulers are wise, they will give the director of music a seat among the heads of other departments on equal terms of title and authority. The musical professor must then feel that his office is in essence the same as those of his colleagues, and he must strive in exactly the same spirit and with the same motive to make his work respected not only by musicians but also by scientific and by literary men."

DEFECTS IN MODERN EDUCATION.

In an elaborate analysis of the vices of the present system of education, Mr. W. K. Hill, in the Contemporary Review, briefly. refers to the perfunctory methods of teaching literary, phililogical, and musical subjects. We quote the following relevant part:

There are in every school activities which tend to foster originality of mind, only they are not an integral part of the recognized curriculum. I refer to the school societies-the debating, literary, classical, and scientific societies.

"In the debating society, the school has a powerful instrument for developing any faculty of eloquence, any power of producing original forensic literature, which may be latent in any of its members; but how little this instrument is utilized. Suppose a prize is given at the end of the session for the best set or extempore speech, what facilities are offered during the session for studying good models or having the child's irregular efforts criticised and corrected? In many cases such aid would be resented. Why? Because the debating society is not so much (if at all) an instrument of education as means of amusement to those children who possess, what is the first requisite of success in public speaking, the gift of the gab.' Then, what a wealth of possibilities is latent in the literary society, if only there were some authoritative effort on the part of the teachers to mould its crude products into nobler shapes and gently and patiently guide its efforts along the paths of true originality. Now, it is too often the scene of rough-and-ready plagiarism, stamped with the applause or the disapprobation of incompetent judges blinded by the prejudices of inexperienced youth.

In poetry,

all lines and verses are alike committed to memory, and at most the sense is elucidated; but there is no effort to arouse the child to a mental comprehension of the word-pictures and the word-music, nor any effort to make him weigh verse with verse, stanza with stanza, and see, hear, and feel, that one is more beautiful than the other-an effort which would arouse any faculty of reproduction he might possess and prevent him confounding his scribbled lines of more or less rhythmic prose with true poetry. What is the good of learning verses by heart if we do not understand what makes them poetry? Some of the poetic spirit of the author must, of course, percolate into the mind of the child in the process of learning by rote; but how much less will so enter the mind than

if the poetry, not the verses, were taught by the teacher. Otherwise learning poetry is a mere mnemonic exercise of little value."

MEMORIES OF EDWIN BOOTH.

Mrs. D. P. Bowers once contributed some interesting personal reminiscences of Edwin Booth to the California Illustrated Magazine. Her estimate of him was higher because of her association with him in Shakespearian dramas. We quote but two paragraphs:

44

As an artist, he was a genius. His intellect was broad and receptive. While, perhaps, not a profound scholar in a general sense, he was well read in all that pertained to his art, and was especially well informed in the historical environments of the many characters he portrayed. No actor ever had a truer comprehension of the many involved and difficult passages of Shakespeare than he. In his work he was always direct and sincere, and everything he did was marked by perfect good taste. He never overelaborated a part, and he never resorted to tricks to win approbation. the sake of being thought original, he would never introduce a piece of business' that would for one moment call the thought from the picture. His conceptions of his characters were both lofty and consistent, and it seemed to be his purpose, so far as lay in his power, to present the spiritual sides of their natures.

For

Mr.

"I once read an article by one who assumed to speak with authority, wherein Mr. Booth was somewhat slightingly spoken of as an elocutionist.' It was also said that the school of which he was the leading representative had died with him. Booth was an elocutionist, that is, one versed in the art of the delivery of language; but it was an accomplishment that only unconsciously heightened the power and the beauty of his acting. His elocution' was an eloquence not only of speech but of action, and without that eloquence no actor can truly picture the heroes of the master-dramatist. True eloquence like his, be it of speech of action or of thought, can not die, but will live and find a a responsive chord in the breasts of men as long as their hearts can be moved by the beautiful and the noble. I believe there are young men in our profession in America who will in time take up his mantle; and I sincerely hope that they will never depreciate his successes, but rather study carefully their secrets and strive to emulate the examples of his artistic life."

SPIRIT OF THE AMERICAN STUDENT.

"The prejudice against American singers by their own people," says Mme. Anna Lankow in the New York Musical Courier for Dec. 2, "may find its reason much more in the spirit of the American student than in the managers and the public. Out of the thousands that have beautiful material and