the female organ according to their own very different registers, then it can easily be understood that many voices must have been ruined by the process, and the scarcity of distinguished female singers would thus be satisfactorily accounted for. But I fail to see in what way the disappearance of male soprani and contralti could possibly have affected tenors and basses. Again, it is asserted that the way in which modern composers write vocal music is the cause of the evil. Certain it is that in the compositions of the old Italian masters the voice is studied, and nothing introduced which is hurtful or disadvantageous. Awkward intervals are avoided, no fatigue is caused, and everything is eminently _singable_; but the music is not always expressive of the sense of the words, which were clearly considered to be of minor importance. With our modern (and especially with the German) composers, it is just the opposite, their chief aim being thoroughly to enter, not only into the spirit of their text, but even into the slightest shade, the minutest detail of it, so as to make the music, as it were, a translation of their words into a higher kind of language. What, on the other hand, is possible or impossible for the voice is, since the time of Beethoven, but rarely considered; many composers, even the most distinguished ones, having evidently little knowledge of the most beautiful of instruments, for which they are nevertheless continually writing. When one of the greatest living masters introduced the harp into his works, he wrote for it just as though it were a piano--_i.e._, as though it were to be played upon with the thumb and four fingers. But it so happens that on that instrument the fourth finger is never used. Consequently, when it came to the point harpists could not play that gentleman's compositions: they had first to re-write them. Here the composer, of course, was found out immediately, and he or any other man would have the same fate if he attempted to write for an instrument the properties of which he did not fully understand. But with the human voice the case is different. Every musician believes himself to be competent to write for it, though he may possibly be wholly unacquainted with its many peculiarities. It is to be feared, therefore, that modern composers must be held largely responsible for the sad state of affairs concerning vocal art at the present time, and well might they learn a lesson from Mozart, who, in spite of his genius, first carefully studied the human voice, and then wrote for it.