The strictly classical musicians of the present reject all Italian music as bad. The objection made to it is, that the music is never adapted to the words, but often expresses something wholly different and sometimes directly opposite to their meaning, and that it never gives back to us any high, poetic sentiment, but aims to bribe us with ornaments only, and accidents. In regard to modern Italian music this judgment may be just. These superficial compositions are a product of Italian music in its decline, and can force for themselves a certain popularity only by their pleasant and easy melodies. Even the old Italian music seems at first sight to pay little or no regard to the sense of the words, especially when the time, according to the classic German method, is set too quick. Upon closer study, however, we soon perceive that, although the music is treated as the chief thing, the meaning of the words is certainly given when the music is rightly performed. Were it not so, our music would hardly ever have been able to form and develop itself upon and through these old vocal compositions. As the pictures of Titian, Rubens, and other great painters of that time, who were masters of form as well as of color, will always be considered as works of art and models, so the compositions of the old Italian singing masters and of those who went from their schools are to be held up as examples for vocal composition. In their works, as in all the works of art of that time, form takes precedence of the spirit, that is, the words and their poetic significance are treated as secondary matters. But all the peculiar properties of the human voice find therein due consideration; everything at variance with them is avoided, and every interval, every vowel, is so introduced that the voice can flow out with the greatest perfection. These ornamented compositions can be sung more easily and with less effort than a simple aria of a modern composer. The fine tact and the correct feeling with which in those old vocal compositions what nature directs was observed, show that they are the works of singers of the golden age of the art of singing, of artists who with an exact knowledge of the beauties and capabilities of the voice possessed, and in those days were compelled to possess, the most thorough culture in the theory of music.