Moreover, there are interesting signs of a return to some of the orchestral instruments which had fallen into disuse when the modern art of orchestration came into existence. It is not only a pious regard and reverence for Bach and Händel, especially the former, which is prompting conductors when performing their works to restore instruments to the orchestra which were considered hopelessly obsolete only a few decades ago, but also a growing appreciation of the fact that modern substitutes for them have largely failed of their mission. Two facts of large importance confront the careful observer of musical phenomena to-day: the art of composition has reached that degree of technical perfection, or high virtuoso-ship which in the history of all the arts introduces a decay of true creativeness. We have, therefore, on the one hand excessive admiration for technique _per se_, and on the other a growing reaction towards old ideals. Of this latter fact I thought I saw significant evidences in 1900 when as a member of the International Jury at the Paris Exposition new specimens of a considerable number of archaic musical instruments came into my hands for examination, among them a bass flute for the return of which Mr. Frederick Corder expresses an ardent longing in his admirable essay on Instrumentation in the new edition of Grove's "Dictionary of Music and Musicians." Since then, too, we have heard the harpsichord in our concert-rooms, seen the oboe d'amore adopted by Richard Strauss, the alto flute by Felix Weingartner, and observed the establishment in America as well as Europe of orchestral and chamber concerts in which music of the seventeenth and earlier centuries is played upon instruments for which it was written. We shall in all likelihood some day have to extend our treatises on orchestration to include some of the instruments now considered obsolete, and be grateful for all references to them in historical works like the present one. Dr. Coerne, the author of this book, is an American composer born in Newark, N.J., who has achieved the distinction of having an opera of his writing performed in a European opera-house. His "Zenobia" was brought forward in Bremen on December 1, 1905. It was the first instance of the performance in Europe of a grand opera composed by a native of the United States. The score of this opera and the subject-matter of this book were accepted as a thesis by Harvard University which conferred the degree of Ph.D. on the author in June, 1905. It was the first time that the university bestowed the degree for special work in music. H.E. KREHBIEL. NEW YORK, _April_, 1908. THE EVOLUTION OF MODERN ORCHESTRATION PART I.--PRELIMINARIES. CHAPTER I. THE CRADLE OF INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC. (HISTORICAL REVIEW.) I.